


I laugh like me again, he laughs like you

by Napping



Category: Captain America (Movies), Marvel, Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Established Relationship, Gay Bucky Barnes, Grief/Mourning, M/M, Married Couple, Memory Loss, Slow Burn, Temporary Character Death
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-09-19
Updated: 2020-04-13
Packaged: 2020-10-24 08:20:35
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 3
Words: 28,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20702852
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Napping/pseuds/Napping
Summary: Steve loved him. Loved him so deeply, so unconditionally that all he wanted to do was never leave. Stay here by his side and never go, not ever again.He was horrified for him, though, so much so that it even overshadowed the happiness that was blooming in his chest. “What have they done to you?”Or: Bucky was killed on a mission and SHIELD decided to use the T.A.H.I.T.I project to bring him back. There was a catch, though. Bucky was, under no circumstance, allowed to remember his old life.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> !! The "If your secrets were like seeds" bit is in fact a QUOTE !! I am not poetic enough to come up with something that beautiful myself, wish I was though. It's from the song "No Plan" by - you guessed it - Hozier. (Is the song about edging? Discuss. (If you've never seen the song like that and only now start to, I'm sorry. Also, really not, cause it's hilarious)) 
> 
> Idk I apparently felt the need to find another thing for them instead of "Till the end of the line" because endgame hurt my feelings. 
> 
> That being said, enjoy the like 2k words fluff in the beginning, there won't be more of it for like literally 30-40k words :) 
> 
> Nick

**Steve:**

Steve stretched his arms over his head, looking around disoriented. Bucky was lying heavily on his shoulder, his nose screwed up. Steve pressed a quick kiss to his temple before he rolled over, getting his phone from the nightstand.

”Hello?” Steve answered it without checking the caller ID. It was way too early for anyone to call him, it didn’t matter who it was.

”Wakey, Wakey, eggs and bakey,” Clint said on the other end, sounding about as asleep as Steve felt. ”You need to come in.”

Steve closed his eyes again, leaning against Bucky’s back, who had turned around and buried his head under his pillow.

”I am not scheduled for work today, Barton,” Steve insisted, putting the phone on speaker and used his free hands to pull Bucky closer to his chest, enjoying his warmth. Bucky just murmured something unintelligible and then pressed back against him.

”Yeah, we know,” Clint said, interrupting himself to yawn. ”Neither was I. But they’ve gotten intel on this guy, uhm. Alexander Pierce? They called him a threat level orange.”

”Orange?” Steve said, suddenly a lot more awake than he’d been just a second ago. ”How good is the intel we’ve gotten? Can we trust the source?”

”Well, I guess so, dude. Fury himself told me to call you and your shadow.”

Bucky murmured something in low disagreement that Steve couldn’t quite make out, but laughed about anyway.

”That important, huh?” Steve asked, pulling away from Bucky again and sitting up against the headboard of the bed.

”Yeah, man, he insisted that we all came in. Talking about it, tell your husband to get off his ass too. I can hear him snoring through the phone,” Clint teased.

Steve laughed again and poked Bucky in the side, which caused him to roll onto his back, throwing his arms over his eyes. ”The husband really doesn’t want to,” Bucky answered without really opening his mouth to speak.

”Move you ass, Barnes, or Fury will kick it,” Clint giggled back, then yawned again. ”You too, Rogers. This guy is the real deal, we need to bring him in alive, quick and under the radar.”

Steve nodded, one of his hands rubbing through Bucky’s hair, making his husband smile lazily. ”We’ll be there in 25,” he answered, before quickly leaning down to kiss the corner of Bucky’s smile.

”Ew,” Clint complained though the phone. ”Was that a kissing sound? Ew, I am still on the fucking phone, dude. Scratch the morning sex from your to do list and be here in 10, I’ll time you two, gross.” With that Clint ended the call abruptly, making Steve shake his head.

”I think we should totally have morning sex, just to show him,” Bucky yawned into the silence, lazily opening one of his eyes, looking up at Steve, before turning his head and pressing a kiss to Steve’s hip that was on his eye level.

Steve leaned back again and laughed before pushing Bucky’s head back into his pillow with a flat hand. ”We have 10 minutes to get to HQ. Driving alone will take us seven minutes.”

Buck groaned and closed his eye again. ”The married life made you so boring.”

Steve shock his head amused and got up, looking over his shoulder back to Bucky, who pouted sleepily. ”And yet you haven’t divorced me for 8 years and counting,” he shrugged, before walking to the bathroom, leaving the door open.

”Foolish,” Bucky answered and then shuffled into the bathroom behind Steve, leaning his cheek against his back, looking like he was already falling back asleep.

Steve turned around, stabilising Bucky with his arms and made him lean against his chest instead, resting his head atop his while brushing his teeth. ”You love me.”

Bucky just took a deep breath as answer and snuggled closer to Steve’s chest, making no move to get ready himself. ”I suppose,” he said after a beat, before holding his right hand up in front of Steve’s face making a gripping gesture.

Steve hummed and half turned to fetch Bucky’s wedding ring from the counter in the bathroom where he left it overnight and put it on his finger. Bucky insisted to wear it on his right hand when he went on missions because he needed his left hand to shoot his riffle and didn’t want the ring to get in the way of that. When Steve had told him that he wouldn’t mind if Bucky just didn’t wear it when he was at work, Bucky had looked at him like he’d lost his mind, saying he was always the most proud when he looked down and saw the ring on his finger. And well, what was Steve really supposed to say to that. He imagined the smile he had given Bucky as answer was the most sappy he’s ever mustered.

”Thanks, love,” Bucky said, putting his hand between his cheek and Steve’s chest again, the metal of his ring cold against him.

Steve pressed another kiss a top of Bucky’s hair and then gently pushed him away from him. ”Chop, chop, we have approximately one minute left or we can listen to Fury complain about it for the whole debrief.”

Bucky looked at him with a pained expression, but began to brush his hair back. ”How about you go to work and just leave me here. Keep my location a secret, say you haven’t seen me in a week, they’d never know.”

Steve laughed, pulling his shirt over his head and putting his bulled proof vest and SHIELD shirt on. ”If your secrets were like seeds,” he nodded, handing Bucky his own vest, who took it while rubbing the sleep out of his eyes with his other hand.

”Hire a gardener for your grave,” Bucky completed Steve’s sentence before sighing and zipping his wind breaker shut. ”Good to know that you’d lie to Fury to save my ass, you know. Shows how gone you are for me.”

”Smart ass,” Steve answered, pulling his pants up and leaving the bathroom to grab the car keys. ”Hurry, we are already 3 minutes late and we’re not even in the car yet.”

”I cannot believe we are late even though you stopped us from having morning sex,” Bucky murmured, tying his boots messily.

Clint had an eyebrow raised and his mouth already opened to say something but Bucky held up an accusing finger shutting him up. “I don’t wanna hear a thing out of your mouth for the whole debrief. Your chop - chop - hurry - up routine prevented me from getting lucky this morning.”

Steve turned around fast from where he’d been greeting Natasha, gaping at his husband, cheeks slightly red. ”_Bucky!” _He exclaimed scandalised, causing both Clint and Bucky to giggle.

Before Bucky could answer him though, definitely saying something to make Steve’s blush worse than it was right now, he got interrupted by Tony. He had a cup of coffee in one hand and a pair of sunglasses in the other even though he was already wearing some. ”As long as you are married to a man with an ass like that you’ll always be lucky. Am I right, Romanov?”

Natasha raised an eyebrow slowly looking from Steve to Bucky, till her eyes settled on Tony. ”Don’t even try to drag me into this.”

Bucky walked over to Steve, who was trying to hide his red ears by pulling his shoulders up. His husband placed one hand between his shoulder blades, keeping his eyes on Stark. ”I know I am,” he answered as if Natasha hadn’t said anything. ”Point still stands. I couldn’t do anything with this ass this morning because of _this _ass.” Bucky pointed accusingly at Clint, who only shrugged, still smirking.

Steve didn’t look impressed in the slightest when he finally turned back to Bucky fully, giving up on his conversation with Natasha. ”You mean the world to me too, Buck,” he deadpanned.

”Hey, don’t kill the messenger, man,” Clint talked before Bucky could say something. ”Fury ordered me to call you two in asap.”

”I did.” Fury walked into the room, Steve seeing from the corner of his eye how Bucky rolled his eyes, definitely ready to rant about Dramatic Entrances And Why They Are Unnecessary And Overdone In Their Work Environment later.

Steve turned to get seated between Bucky and Natasha, watching as Tony put his orange tainted sunglasses atop of his head, showing off the dark circles underneath his eyes, and tucking the ones he had in his hand in the collar of his dress shirt.

”Before the complaining starts, I know that half of you weren’t scheduled for work today, but this case takes priority,” Fury continued, looking at Steve, Bucky and Clint pointedly. The latter only shrugging as answer, while Steve nodded.

”So what is it?”

_It_ was probably the biggest fish Steve and his team have ever had to catch. This case took priority indeed. Alexander Pierce proved to be part of a big undercover organization called HYDRA, that terrorized thousands, kidnapped POW and conditioned them to be their guard dogs. Never leaving a trace, no witnesses, no proof.

Till one of their soldiers seemed to have broken out of his training in the middle of a mission, causing a huge spectacle on a Highway. The police force was able to get the confused man into custody, where the only thing he repeated over and over again was the name of the man behind it all.

Tracking him down had taken SHIELD months and highest sensitivity, but they’ve gotten intel from a trustworthy source that Pierce, a grey haired man with eyes like a snake, was in an undercover HYDRA base on an old military compound.

The team nodded, looking at the picture of the target one more time before going to gear up.

”You good, sweetheart?” Bucky hung back behind the team, walking with Steve. His concerned blue eyes looking serious at him for the first time today.

Steve nodded and leaned a bit into his husband. ”It’s not exactly the breakfast in bed kinda day that we’ve had planned, but we’ll make up for it, yes?”

Bucky shot an easy grin his way, kissing his temple. ”Yes, Captain,” he agreed, teasingly. ”Let’s catch some bad guys and then get back home and make some pancakes.”

They landed on the compound not 30 minutes later. Steve let his eyes wander over everyone on his team, eyes lingering on Bucky. Everything he could really see of him, on uniform were the bold white 379 that was on the left arm of his jacket and also on the right side of his chest.

Clint wore the same uniform as Bucky did, the standard kind for the snipers. His sleeve was numbered 375.

Tony only wore the suit he’s also worn in the debrief, only here for extra surveillance and tech support.

Natasha, same as Steve and the rest of his team, wore lighter uniforms, better for actual hand to hand compact.

”Ready?” He asked the team, eyes staying on his husband though. 

In retrospect, he only wished he’d looked at him longer.

Steve has started his training at SHIELD at the age of 18. At first he just wanted to make a difference, more than a usual police officer could do, anyway. He’d trained night and day, lost sleep on over night missions, brought coffee to all the senior agents — did everything to be _seen_. And it had payed out. At the age of 25 he became the youngest Captain of a tac team in the history of SHIELD.

He’d promised himself that day that he’d do everything to be the best Captain, too. Communicate with his team, listen to them but also give them guidance. Make sure everybody felt seen and understood. 

And Steve succeeded. Succeeded for 7 years; together with his team he’d one of the best mission records, only a few mishaps along the way.

7 years, till this day. This one mission. Count 7.

Steve always tried to be the best he could be at anything he tried. Bucky called it fondly 'his dying need to be in a competition against no-one whatsoever', but Steve’s always shaken his head about it. Maybe Bucky was right, anyway though. Still, apparently Failing also made the list with things he was better at than others. 

The mission went smoothly. Too smoothly, really. Steve should’ve been on full alert but he’s failed. And he’ll be paying for it for the rest of his life.

”I’ve got 3 heat signatures coming out the front entrance, Cap,” Tony said over his coms, as Steve was cautiously walking around the back, shooting Natasha a signal to keep her guns ready.

”Snipers, come in,” Steve whispered as answer, stopping and also showing Natasha to wait.

”Sniper 375 in position,” Clint confirmed.

”Sniper 379 in position,” Bucky answered too, then adding: ”I’ve got eyes on 2 guards, armed heavily, guns loaded. Waiting for confirmation that the third man is the target.”

”Stark?” Steve asked, waved Natasha to go into the back of the base together with Agent Maron and Fims.

”Semi —Confirmed,” Tony answered, in the background of his com the faint noises of keyboard clicking. ”JARVIS can only confirm 79% similarity between him and the picture we got, he knows how to play the cameras.”

Steve nodded, thinking of how to proceed. 

”Sniper 379,” Bucky interrupted his train of thoughts, ”Guards are gearing up more, it doesn’t look like they just want to escort the target out. They seem to want to make sure nobody follows them, too. Requesting critical shot.”

”Confirming critical shot to the guards if necessary,” Steve nodded while talking, slowly walking around the base, back to the front. ”Agent Ward and I are about to intervene, but I repeat: Target mustn’t be harmed.” 

Before anyone could confirm the goal of the mission, though, the firing started. Steve started to run faster. ”What is happening? Snipers, Stark, come in.”

There was more shouting on the coms, nobody answering him, though. Steve pulled his eyebrows down, slowing before peaking around the corner of the building.

The armed guards and also the target laid on their backs, bleeding, only Pierce’s chest still moving. Steve looked up at the roof opposite, where he could see Barton still in his corner and Bucky just getting down.

”Rumlow fired,” Bucky said over the comms, walking in the direction of the three people on the ground, shooting Steve a sign to wait where he was.

He was gonna discuss with Bucky again later that just because he was married to the team Captain didn’t mean he could also give orders. Still, though, Steve couldn’t help the little fond smile playing around his lips; it was such a Bucky thing to do.

The smile froze right there, though, when he looked back at the three bodies on the ground, making short eye contact with Pierce, who didn’t look defeated at all. His mouth was moving rapidly, talking to Bucky fast and quietly. His eyes looked desperate and painfully hopeful. It wasn’t right. Steve took a step closer, still too far away to actually see the exact details of his face but yet, the coin dropped.

”Stop!” He shouted before he could even fully register what was going on. ”That’s not the target. This is not the man we were shown in the details about the mission,” Steve breathed heavily, his blood running cold, starting to run again, towards Bucky this time who stood carefully still. ”Fall back! It’s a trap.”

He saw his world turn orange before he even heard the sounds of the explosion. Steve got thrown back a couple of feet and landed on his stomach but didn’t feel any of his bones snap or his skin getting burned. He pressed his hands down over his ringing ears, relieved that he’s been far enough away for the explosion not to reach him.

In retrospect, the only blissful second of ignorance he’d ever have in his life from his point forward. In the next second, though, it came raining down on him. The reason _why_ he was far enough away from it.

He rolled onto his back and got on unsteady legs, his world dancing and swirling in front of his eyes, his head aching. Nonetheless he tried to walk as fast as he could to the burning bodies that were the target’s guards not even a minute ago. 

“Does somebody have eyes on Bucky?” Steve asked, not really hearing himself, his ears humming too loudly. ”Answer me! Does anybody —,” he took a deep breath and fell forward onto his knees before getting back up again, even more unsteadily than before. ”Where is Bucky?”

He didn’t even bother to say Sniper 379 or Agent Barnes. Steve distinctly felt as something wet rolled down his cheek. At first he thought it might be a tear but when it fell down onto his hand he saw a drop of blood.

He put his hand on his forehead, it got wet instantly. He didn’t care. ”Clint, Tony — does anybody see Bucky?” He tried again, his voice desperate and rough.

Steve didn’t know if simply nobody answered him or if the explosion had deafened him so much that he couldn’t hear them, but it didn’t matter anyway when he reached Bucky.

Steve felt his whole body shut down at the sight of his husband. He didn’t register stumbling to him, or taking him in arms. All he could see was red.

So, so much of it.

Bucky’s face was pale. There were many cuts all over his face, the biggest one on his forehead, making blood run down over his nose and lips. Steve couldn’t even see the blue in his left eye anymore, the pupil red and the eye bleeding heavily.

His husband opened and closed his mouth a few times, taking in air raggedly. ”Stevie,” he said at last, his voice so far from how it normally was, so thin and quiet, Steve didn’t want to believe it came from him. 

”Don’t talk, you idiot,” Steve hushed, pulling Bucky closer. There was no mistaking whether or not those were tears on his face right now. He turned his head in the direction of the SHIELD field van. ”Medic! Somebody call a medic!”

Bucky tried to shake his head but only gasped in pain. ”I don’t know what’s happening,” he said, trying to look around, causing a tear shaped drop off blood to roll from his left eye. His next forced breath sounded too close to a sob for Steve to accept. He leaned down and kissed Bucky’s forehead over and over again. ”Stevie, what’s happening?”

Steve leaned back, looking down. He was trained enough to register that he was in shock, but also too deep in his shock to know what to do against it. All he wanted was to go home. Make Bucky the pancakes he’d wanted. Cuddle Bucky close and never let go. ”Hey no, no you’re alright,” Steve answered his voice weirdly heavy and shrill with desperation, slightly rocking them back and forth. ”You hear me? You’re alright. It’s fine. There’s only a little blood. It’s fine, Buck.”

Steve felt two tears roll from his eyes and then drop from his jaw onto Bucky’s cheek. ”Hurts, Stevie,” Bucky said, closing his unfocused eyes for just a second too long. ”I wanna go home.”

He could swear he has never felt more pain than in this moment. Steve took a deep breath and pulled Bucky closer to his chest, desperate to fix this but didn’t know how to.

The cold panic inside of him making him shake uncontrollable. ”We’ll go home, I promise. It will be just fine. Everything will be okay.” He whispered these words over and over again in Bucky’s sweaty but soft hair; thinking that maybe, they would come true. If he just said it often enough, he’d get to keep Bucky.

Bucky took another shallow breath, groaning in pain. When Steve locked back down at him,he met his eyes, seeming to see Steve for the first time since Steve took him into his arms.

”And if your secrets were like seeds,” Bucky said quietly, the corners of his mouth pulling up ever so slightly. His face went from agonized to fond so quickly, Steve nearly missed it. ”Hire a gardener for my grave, right?” 

Steve shock his head. ”No,” he all but mouthed, feeling more tears spilling from his eyes. ”No.”

Bucky’s eyes drifted from his face, before he blinked three times, each time longer than the one before. ”I love you, Stevie.” 

”Don’t,” Steve whispered, nothing but terrified. ”Don’t even talk like this. It will be fine.”

With what seemed to be the last bit of strength he had left in body, Bucky pulled his mouth into the tiniest of smiles. ”Yes, it will be. I love you. I love you more than you’d ever know, Stevie.”

Bucky coughed, blood running out of the corner of his mouth.

Steve rocked them harder, pressing his lips to Bucky’s forehead again. ”I’m sorry. I am so sorry.”

”It’s not your fault,” Bucky answered, his voice so thin but there was a little dent between his eyebrows, he was calling bullshit. Steve could only muster a sob as reply; this was so purely _Bucky_. Steve pulled him closer. ”Take care of yourself, yes? You are my everything.”

”I love you too, Buck. I’m sorry. I love you,” Steve said, pressing his eyes shut, as if he could make all go away if he just didn’t look at it long enough.

Bucky seemed to try to raise his hand, but only pulled his face in a pained expression when he tried. But then focused his eyes on Steve as good as he could, before they drifted off again. ”Marvel the flowers you have made.”

”Stop saying it like this,” Steve answered, vision too blurred to see his husband’s face.

Bucky didn’t answer. Steve held him a bit further from his chest looking down on him, strangely aware that his own breathing was speeding up, black spots dancing in front of his eyes. 

He put two shaking finger’s on his husband’s neck, pressing down, turning back to the other agents, who seemed to have silently agreed to wait in a respectful distance.

Steve saw tears on Clint’s as well as Tony’s cheeks, shaking his head. They had no reason to cry. It would be alright.

It —

“I can’t feel a pulse,” Steve panted, hovering over Bucky, not quite seeing him, though. ”Why doesn’t anyone help me. I —”

There wasn’t a pulse.

No pulse.

Steve shock his head, pressing his shaking fingers harder against Bucky’s neck, as if his pulse was just maybe buried deeper, somewhere underneath.

There was nothing.

Of course there wasn’t. He looked down at his husband, more of his blood outside than inside of him. Steve knew he should stop looking at Bucky like that. Knew that he would never be able to forget what he saw.

Once he actually started starring though, he couldn’t stop.

So much blood.

Bucky’s left arm torn to shreds, his uniform only stripes of fabric, nothing but deep cuts, dark with blood underneath.

They should have stayed in bed.

Ignored the call.

Steve closed his eyes, leaning his forehead against Bucky’s sternum. 

He should have never agreed that they could come in. He should have said that they had plans to stay in bed the whole day and then hung up.

Steve didn’t know how he got back on the van. He didn’t know who dragged him away from Bucky - Bucky’s _body -_ and back into his seat and he couldn’t care less either.

Steve looked around, not knowing what he should be looking at right now. His eyes seemed to seek out Bucky’s empty seat opposite to him. Steve felt more silent tears rolling down his cheeks.

_Bucky_. 

His eyes wandered again, not wanting to look at anyone or anything. He just wanted to wake up from this nightmare.

Suddenly somebody stepped into his line of vision. He looked up at Tony, who was pushing his second pair of sunglasses over Steve’s eyes. ”The classiest amour,” Tony said, not even trying to put a smile fitting to his easy words on his face.

Steve couldn’t see his eyes through the sunglasses Tony was wearing, either, but there were tears escaping at the bottom of them.

Fury’s face was blank of any emotion. He walked a bit more hurried than he usually would in their direction the second they stepped out of the vehicle, though.

”Agent Rogers,” he said, his voice just as void of anything as his face was. Steve looked up at him only tired. 

”Yes?” He asked, not remembering his voice ever sounding this defeated.

”I am very sorry for your loss.” Steve’s brain was too stubbornly in denial to even register these words. They shouldn’t be said to him. There was no reason for it.

”Sure,” Steve nodded, stepping inside the building behind Fury, who walked them straight to his office.

”You’ll be on leave for one month,” Fury said, medically, his blank mask not even cracking around the edges, making it all the more obvious that it was exactly that. ”SHIELD will provide a free counsellor and take the costs of the burial. We have contacted your second emergency contact on your personal information, Samuel Wilson. We have not yet told him what has happened in case you wanted to.”

Steve nodded. And then kept nodding, not hearing a word his boss said. He only snapped back to attention when Fury actively sought eye contact with him. 

”Agent Rogers, has Agent Barnes said anything before he passed? There are witnesses that state that the supposed target has talked to him before the explosion?” 

Steve looked up at him through red eyes, the tears never quite stopped from running down his cheeks. He cleared his throat, knowing there was no point to it. His voice would still sound broken and rough. ”He said he loved me,” Steve answered slowly, feeling a tiny flame of anger deep down in his chest, but for the first time in his life was it not enough to pick a physical fight over it. ”He said I shouldn’t blame myself. He said he wanted to _go home._”

Fury opened his mouth, a little wrinkle between his eyebrows that Steve knew to read as deep regret. Well, he wasn’t the only one feeling guilty. Before he could say anything, though, Natasha interrupted them. ”Fury, let him go.”

Fury turned his head to her, obviously debating whether or not to listen to her orders, but then took a step back. He extended his hand to Steve, who took it just a beat too late. ”I am sorry. This was insensitive.”

Steve answered nothing, just keeping his eyes on his boss.

He wondered if he would rather feel the pain than the numbness that filled his body right now. That made him feel as if all of his limbs were not attached to him anymore and made listening so hard, because there was this constant humming noise in his ears. 

Steve remembered vaguely that Fury had said something about calling his second emergency contact. Yet, when he came home and saw Sam sitting on his couch he didn’t know how to react.

It was also then that he’s gotten his answer to his question.

Pain was worse.

So, _so _much worse.

The second thing he saw after Sam was a picture of Bucky that stood on the little shelf next to the couch. His first thought, after _He looks so good _and _Will I ever see this ring again_, was that the pain he felt was all consuming.

He’d opened the door, fumbling with the lock for a second too long and then stumbled over a pair of shoes, noticing Sam’s right next to them. When he looked up, Sam was sitting in the middle of the couch, a glass of water in his hand but he could see a faint shiver in his arm.

Sam was nervous. Steve wondered why. Wondered if SHIELD has at least given him a hint or just called him here to be sucker punched with this new development that Steve hadn’t even quite processed yet.

His gaze wandered behind Sam. There was another glass of water on the shelf next to the couch, definitely Bucky’s and right there. There it was. A framed picture of Bucky in his wedding suit, winking into the camera, holding up his left hand with his wedding ring. It had been all new, shiny and not a scratch on it.

_He looks so good._

_Will I ever see this ring again?_

And then he was on his knees, a hand pressed on his chest. Heaving a breath before the next got stuck in his throat, the only sound he made was a sob before he began to gasp for breaths.

He looked up at Sam in pure desperation for a second before he squeezed his eyes shut, feeling more and more tears building up in them.

Steve has never quit anything in his life. He has always been there to fight till the very end. But right now, all he could think of, over and over again was that he gave up.

He gave up.

Steve only distinctly noticed Sam rushing over to him from the couch, putting a hand on his shoulder. Steve didn’t want to look at him. Didn’t want to open his eyes ever again, actually. Not when from in corner all he saw were reminders of how happy Bucky and he had been.

How painfully happy.

Steve clenched his teeth in pain and sat down with his back against the couch, still fighting to work out how breathing worked again, failing miserably. 

”There is —,” he heaved out, wheezing. ”There is something on my chest. Sam, I cannot breath there is something —”

Steve coughed, feeling Sam take his hands in his, pressing them right over his heart strongly. 

”Count with me, Steve,” Sam said calmly, even though Steve could swear that Sam was freaking out too. He had no idea. ”Do you feel my breath? My heartbeat? Concentrate on it.”

Steve sniffled again, shaking his head. Trying to get his brain to focus when all it did right now was making alarm, process nothing but the utter _depth _of the loss Steve’s just experienced.

Steve clenched his jaw, never quite stopping to softly shake his head. 

_One. Two. Three. Four._

Steve counted in his head, till the humming in his brain quieted down at least a bit.

_Five. Six. Seven. Eight._

Until he found the strength to take a breath again.

_Nine. Ten. Eleven. Twelve._

Until he adapted to the pain. He was a trained soldier. He could take the pain of bullet wounds and bury it deep in his brain till he could get help.

He never remembered anything hurting quite this badly.

”Very good, Steve,” Sam whispered, gripping Steve’s arm to help him sit on the couch.

When he opened his eyes cautiously, his vision was blurry and filled with black spots. Steve took a deep breath, focusing on looking at nothing but Sam.

Sam looked worried out of his mind. Trying really hard to be the rock Steve obviously needed but fidgeting in a way that Steve’s never seen before.

”Bucky. He is — he-“ Steve started, feeling his breathing hitch again but swallowing it down. Against the fresh tears, though, he was powerless. 

”Deep breaths. What about Bucky?” Sam’s eyes wandered through the room for a second, as if to make sure for himself that Bucky hadn’t come home with Steve.

Steve silently hoped he’d just put two and two together, so he wouldn’t have to actually say it out loud. Say _it,_ something he was sure he’d never quite grasp himself. 

His eyes went out of focus, but he didn’t have the energy to do anything against it. ”He got hurt, he — and I couldn’t help him. There was so much blood, Sam.” Steve blinked. The image of Bucky’s arm and abdomen that were nothing but torn to bits, waiting for him behind his eyelids. He blinked again. ”So, so much blood and I couldn’t help him. I didn’t bring him home. There was nothing —”

Steve jumped up in a sudden movement, surprising both him and Sam, whose eyes were wide and wet with tears, saying _No, _No over and over again, as if he had in fact connected the dots between Steve breaking down, Bucky being hurt and Bucky not coming home.

He just kept walking, though, till he reached the kitchen. Sam right behind him, tears now streaming down his face, but hand clenched into a fist. And well, Steve knew a defence mechanism when he saw one. Sam was also deeply hit by this, but he had to keep it together for Steve.

”What are you doing?” He asked, his voice thick.

”Making pancakes,” Steve answered, as if it was the most normal thing for him to do in the middle of the night after having his dying husband in his arms not even 5 hours prior.

”Ok,” Sam dragged out, wiping a few tears away from his cheeks, closing his eyes for a second. He looked as if he was just trying to recall everything he had learned in his training to a counsellor. ”How about we sit down instead?”

Steve shock his head and added milk to the flour in a bowl. ”I promised that we’d have pancakes, Sam. I —”

”Ok,” Sam said again, sadder this time, for a different reason, probably.

He looked at Steve for a minute, eyebrows pulled together. As if he was just thinking about what his life would look like from now on. If he hadn’t only lost Bucky, but also a big part of Steve.

What was left of Steve, though, was a whole new question. Steve was the last one who could answer it, not knowing it himself.

”Hand me a pan.”

The finished pancakes landed on a plate on the counter, neither of them touching any. Beer had found its way into their hands, though.

Steve had pulled the entire label off of his, and the three bottles before that one as well. Sam had the distinctly same numb expression on his face, that Steve had before it all hit him.

”His last words were _Marvel the flowers you have made_,” Steve said into the silence, feeling as if these words were forcing their way out of his mouth more than he willingly wanted to say them.

Sam nodded in acknowledgement, taking a sip of his beer. It was far from his first, too, but Steve was too busy counting his own to pay attention to how many Sam’s drunken. ”That was like your thing, right?” 

Steve took a deep breath, nodding slightly. It had been.

It has started when Steve had walked into the gym at SHIELD, just in time to see Bucky slip and fall off the treadmill. _”You’ve seen nothing,”_ Bucky had said, after letting himself be pulled back onto his feet by Steve.

_”My lips are sealed,_” Steve had promised, not quite able to keep himself from laughing. Then he looked outside the window for a second before focusing back on Bucky, who was blushing just a little bit around his cheekbones. This was one of few occasions Steve has ever seen Bucky blush. _”If your secrets were like seeds,”_ Steve added, for absolutely no reason at all. _”Hire a gardener for my grave.”_

Bucky laughed baffled, face lighting up with amusement. _”I will marvel the flowers I’ve made,”_ he answered, throwing Steve one of his easy smiles. 

It was a stupid thing but it sticked. It was then that they promised to never lie to each other. No matter what, they trusted the other.

But it was never supposed to come true in this twisted way. Steve didn’t want to hire anything for Bucky’s grave. There was never supposed to be one. Not when they were still so painfully young, anyway.

”He told me he loved me, too,” Steve added, putting his empty bottle down, taking the next one, already pulling on the label. ”He used his last energy to reassure _me.” _Steve shock his head, the huff that left his lips sounded broken. ”He was dying but he still was there for me.”

Sam nodded, not looking at Steve, the tiniest sad smile playing around his lips. ”He was a good man.”

Steve sniffled, returning the sad smile. ”The best.”

For the first three days after, Sam stayed by his side. They sat in silence, mostly.

On the fourth day, he got Bucky’s dog tags back. It took Steve a while to understand what Fury was holding out to him, but when he finally registered it, he felt as if he should have just stayed in bed, not bothering to leave.

Steve shook his head over and over again, but ending up taking them anyway.

Weird that they haven’t found the ring, Steve came to think of later. Bucky’s left arm might have been ripped to pieces, but his ring had been on his right hand. He let it go, though. The imagine of Bucky’s left arm was so painfully detailed in his memory, he tried to never think of it again.

He put the dog tags around his neck. Together with his own they felt weirdly heavy, making little sounds whenever he moved, not a minute going by in which he could think of anything but his husband.

Steve was convinced he deserved the constant reminder of what he had failed to protect.

Maybe he also just wanted to remember. No matter how painful.

Steve turned around without saying a word, walking straight out of the headquarters, not looking at anybody.

He knew they were looking at him, though. Starring at him, expecting him to lose it, break down right there. Steve was not going to give them the satisfaction of it. He held his chin high, one foot in front of the other.

And he kept on walking, blank face right in place.

The second the door to their apartment fell closed behind him though, he slid to the floor against it. He sat there the whole night, sometimes crying, sometimes just starring ahead, not moving a muscle.

Steve dreamed of Bucky dying.

Bucky living.

Just Bucky.

And then he woke up and lost him all over again. Turning around and seeing his untouched half of the bed.

Sometimes Steve got the feeling that dreaming of Bucky dying wasn’t even half as painful as dreaming of him living. Having Bucky laugh and smile, so _painfully_ close, just to be still gone when Steve opened his eyes was the worst torture he could think of.

It hurt every nerve in his body.

Sometimes overwhelming him so badly he couldn’t breath right for the whole day. Being exhausted always, not remembering when he was able to actually catch a good night’s sleep the last time.

Too afraid to close his eyes in the evening more times than not.

On the fifth day he noticed that he has stopped sleeping. Or stopped doing so willingly anyway.

He didn’t know if he should take the pictures of them together off the walls. It felt like a lie he kept telling himself. The wall behind the pictures had a more faded color than the rest. A constant reminder of what used to be there. Steve hung the pictures up again one day later, he couldn’t stand looking at yet another empty space where Bucky used to be.

Steve was so drunk on the seventh and eighth day, he couldn’t remember either of them.

He stopped counting the days after that, all of them just flying past him anyway. Steve didn’t leave the apartment, didn’t pick up his phone, strangely aware that he was changing. That he used to be different person, but whoever that person was, he was gone now.

Steve was so deep in thoughts about anything _but - _and then ending up thinking just about it anyway, he barely registered Natasha slipping in the apartment. He hadn’t seen her since his conversation with Fury.

She looked at him calculating, just up and down and then stopped, looking him right into his eyes. Steve wondered what she saw. If she also saw him for what he was. If she also looked at him and just saw what he had been unable to keep safe.

It’s all he ever saw when looking into a mirror either way.

Steve watched her as she scanned the room for a second before crossing it with purpose and sitting down on the couch beside him. She blinked slowly, her mouth a straight line. Steve knew her well enough to read the devastation she felt, anyway. She had always been better at hiding it than him. 

”It’s quiet in here,” she stated, successfully breaking the silence in which Steve had been sitting for what felt like 2 years straight.

Steve nodded. He knew that Bucky would have made a joke. He would have said something stupid but charming, would have made all of them laugh with ease.

Steve, though, only nodded again. There was a reason why Bucky had been the more social one of the two of them. He has always known what to say.

Natasha folded her hands in her lap, scanning through the living room another time, her eyes pausing on their wedding picture on the wall, just for the tiniest seconds. Steve has never seen her lose control like that.

”Work is quiet, too,” she kept talking but then fell silent, looking back to him. Steve locked eyes with her, shrugging.

”Yes,” he answered after a beat, as if he had any idea. Work was the last thing on his mind right now.

The silence that followed wasn’t awkward, at least for Steve it wasn’t. He hadn’t talked to anyone in days, he was used to being silent. Natasha though cleared her throat after barely a minute and then looked away from him. 

Her shoulders slumped a little, face more open from a second to the next. ”Steve,” she started, her voice suddenly heavy with honesty. Steve felt more awake, paying attention to her, making him aware that he really hadn’t been before.

Steve raised a tired eyebrow. ”Yes?” He said again, only that.

Natasha took a deep breath and then took his hand. It was a strangely intimate gesture for her, but Steve knew to appreciate it.

”I saw what his body looked like,” Natasha begun, causing Steve to flinch, just a little.

His body.

Torn to pieces.

His bleeding left eye.

The lack of his left arm.

The little, scared smile he shot Steve’s way, trying to be reassuring but Steve knew better.

Bucky didn’t want to die. Bucky had been happy. Bucky died in pain and scared. He knew what was happening and he had been terrified, but yet he had been there for Steve. _Him_, who had vowed to keep him safe and yet failed to keep this promise.

Steve felt two hot tears fall from his right eye, not even trying to stop them.

Natasha nodded at that. ”And it pains me to know that you saw it too.”

Red.

So, _so _much red.

_I wanna go home._

You are my home.

_You are my everything._

I am nothing without you.

Natasha cleared her throat again. ”Nobody should have had to see that.”

Steve only shrugged. What was he supposed to answer anyway?

It wasn’t ok.

It wasn’t fine.

No, he shouldn’t have seen it and he shouldn’t keep seeing it, but he did.

Every time he closed his eyes, he saw him again and again. Heard him, too. Asking what was happening. Begging Steve to bring him home and he _couldn’t. _He couldn’t do anything but hold him in his arms and telling him lies about how everything will be fine, although in fact nothing will ever be okay for him again.

He let him _die._

He didn’t want to come out and say that though. Didn’t want her to know that right now he hadn’t slept in over three days because of it.

That he hadn’t stopped looking at his hands, seeing Bucky’s blood all over them.

Had spend hours washing Bucky’s dog tags, as if it could make him forget that they had also been also coated in his blood. 

”Yes,” Steve answered for the third time, trying to smile at her and failing. He wanted to tell her everything. But also, spare her the pain.

Natasha said it like the worst thing Steve has seen was Bucky’s body. She has said it with such remorse in her words as if she regretted that she hadn’t pulled him away and covered his eyes so the image wouldn’t be burned into his brain forever.

It was never the body though. Not only, anyway.

The worst thing were Bucky’s eyes. They were open the whole time. Steve had watched all life drain out of them slowly, with every breath Bucky took that was counting down to his last one.

That too was what Steve was doomed to see anytime he closed his eyes. Every time he looked at a picture of Bucky. Every time he saw a person with grey eyes. All he saw were Bucky’s eyes, void of life and joy, just empty. So, so dreadfully empty.

”It’s fine,” he reassured Natasha, after she hadn’t said anything in return. He’d said that a lot in the past few days. Every time it felt more like a lie than the time before.

It was not fine. He was not fine.

But he won’t ever be fine again, either, so better start lying about it early.

Natasha didn’t look convinced but didn’t call him out for it, either. They both knew it was a lie, there was no reason to point it out.

Bucky would have hated this, Steve thought, would have hated the silence and the tears.

He missed him. 

Bucky’s smell faded out of the apartment. Also, it used to always smell a bit burned because Bucky couldn’t cook but was determined to do it or die trying. The smell was gone after 3 weeks. Steve didn’t even try to stop the tears that came with the realisation.

Steve felt watched every time he had to leave the apartment. He tried to avoid leaving his apartment, but reality kicked in sooner than he’d liked. And really, Steve tried to not get mad at people who were just trying their best, not knowing how to talk to him now, but with every ‘sorry for your loss’ he became more and more aware of what had just happened.

He didn’t want to. He didn’t want to hear it, didn’t want to think about it, didn’t want it to be real.

But the aching, agonising truth was just as easy at that. Bucky was gone and there were a lot more things to come with that, than he had anticipated.

He had to fill out so painfully much paperwork for SHIELD.

He had to go and see Bucky’s family. Holding Bucky’s mother in his arms for hours, her tears never seeming to stop.

And something that Steve didn’t want to do, maybe just to keep at least the last bit of ignorance he could gather every other day, he had to plan a funeral.

_Bucky’s _funeral.

His tears had stopped falling a few days back, Steve was convinced it was because his body was exhausted. But yet, every time now that he’d cry but couldn’t, he just went entirely still, feeling as if he was burning up from the inside out.

Steve shortly wondered if he was still in shock or if this was just how he’ll feel for the rest of his life now. The rest of his life without Bucky.

He bit the end of the pencil in his hand, looking down to the blank sheet of paper in front of him. Because really, just because Steve didn’t want to think about it, didn’t mean that he didn’t _have_ to.

Bucky was gonna be buried next Sunday. There it will be sunny, not a cloud in the sky.

Steve sighed and rubbed his eyes. He couldn’t think of the words that would do Bucky justice. Not even close.

With a slightly shaking hand, Steve wrote down the words _Hire a gardener for your grave_ and then immediately scratched it off. Bucky would have found it funny. Steve knew though, that nobody else would. There was nothing funny about it, even though it might be ironic. 

Yet, it was never supposed to come to this. 

Steve leaned his head back, trying to think of everything he wanted Bucky’s friends and family to know. That he wanted to make clear, but there was nothing. Nothing that wouldn’t be pathetically, painfully honest anyway.

<strike>I’ve loved Bucky for every second of my life since I was 18.</strike>

Steve shock his head. He knew that, it was a fact. Everybody else knew, too.

<strike>It was my fault</strike>

<strike>It was never supposed to be him. I should have been the first of us to go</strike>

<strike>It was my fault</strike>

<strike>I’m sorry. Bucky, I am so sorry.</strike>

Steve couldn’t remember when he actually fell back to sleep, but when he woke up the next day, he could barely read what he had written in the dark of the night before. Everything blurred, violently scratched out; the only words that were still readable were ‘_my fault_.’

His fault.

His fucking fault.

If he hadn’t picked up the phone. If he had identified the man sooner. If he had told Fury to kiss his ass. If he had told Bucky to listen to his orders, just this once.

It were always the ‘_what if’s_ that broke him most.

Steve shock his head, it felt heavy and ached, picked the pencil back up and decided to go for the easiest truth.

_I have always and will forever, love him._

_”_This is a bad idea,” Clint stated, looking like he was half convinced he just imagined seeing Steve sitting in his chair at the head of the conference table. He rubbed his eyes again and then sipped on his coffee. ”Like a super not-good idea.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, his whole face feeling weirdly heavy. ”I didn’t ask.”

Clint nodded. He looked more tired than usual, Steve noted. Steve didn’t like it, it made him strangely aware that Bucky really was gone and also, sadly, Steve wasn’t the only one he has left behind. ”In case you did, though,” Clint answered, supposedly trying to sound cheerful but missing by a mile. ”I think it’s not a good call to get back to work so soon after -”

”Still not asking,” Steve interrupted him harshly. He didn’t want to hear it. Steve was a trained strategist, he _knew_ this wasn’t his best idea. But the walls in his apartment were coming in closer, memories of Bucky heavy everywhere he looked.

Clint looked down to the table, not saying anything else. Steve didn’t know if he liked that or not. He didn’t want to hear it, but he craved the normality of it. Of Clint not quite knowing what being sensitive meant. Having an easy conversation. Being at work.

It didn’t help Steve half as much as he would have liked it to.

It didn’t take him more than a second to put together why. Normally, work had Bucky in it. Bucky who would joke with Clint about his tactlessness, answering easily and honest anyway.

When it came down to it, it was aways Bucky.

Steve sighed and rubbed over his eyes, ignoring the curious looks the agents threw his way, who weren’t close to neither him nor Bucky. For whom it was only another death of an agent in action and now they wanted to see the aftershocks of it.

Steve turned his attention to Tony who came shuffled in, lacking sunglasses this time. He was frowning, eyes seeming slightly dim. He tried to throw a little smile in Steve’s direction anyway, only showing Steve that Tony was in deep grief, too.

Steve nodded him, then Natasha. He just wanted to start the meeting as his eyes fell on the last agent stumbling into the room.

Bucky had been Agent number 379 on his team. The man rushing into the room now had a big white 380 on his uniform. Like Bucky had never been more than a number. Like he had never existed beyond being replaceable anyway.

Steve took a shuttering breath, distinctly hearing the out-standers whisper something rushed, before he shock his head a few times, trying to get his eyes to look away from the new man’s sleeve.

”Steve,” Natasha said carefully, putting herself between him and the others.

Her eyes were full with concern but still strict. Steve looked away. ”It’s Captain Rogers, Agent Romanoff.”

Natasha looked at him for a second longer before she nodded and sat back down. Steve wished she hadn’t. He didn’t want to show it, but now that her presence was gone between him and the rest, it all came crushing down on him again.

This was what his work place looked like now. Bucky wasn’t sitting to his right anymore. Bucky wouldn’t be smiling encouragingly at him during and pressing a kiss against his temple after the meeting.

”Good morning, everybody.” There was no one smiling at him.

”I was told there was new intel on Redskull’s accomplices.” A few agents whispered something, Steve couldn’t make out what it was.

The buzzing in his ears got louder again, till he couldn’t even hear himself. He was aware that he was speaking. Natasha occasionally nodded, Clint got up to refill his cup of coffee twice, Tony typed on his phone now and again, in an impressing speed. But Steve didn’t really register any of it.

Till he started his next sentence, anyway. ”Sniper 379 will be watching my —,” and Steve fell silent, the buzz suddenly gone and what was left was just awful, fragile silence. 

There wasn’t any sound in the whole room. It’s as if this thoughtless, habitual sentence just took all the noises out of it. Made everyone stop mid motion, not quite knowing how to defuse this particular bomb.

Steve knew that everybody was looking at each other in question. He also knew that Tony’s as well as Clint’s expression crumpled, all the faux happiness gone.

He didn’t know what to do with this information, though. Because all he was focused on were just more things he hadn’t considered yet. Hadn’t overthought yet.

Bucky wouldn’t be watching his six. Never again.

Bucky wasn’t there anymore. 

Funnily enough, it was as if that little thought was actually the awaking that Steve needed. He starred ahead for a few more seconds, rolling the words around in his head.

Bucky was gone. And he has taken a big piece of Steve right with him, maybe even most of him. Steve didn’t want to think of it like this, didn’t want to actively remind himself that his husband was gone, but it was the truth and he had to deal with it.

Bucky was gone and Steve was still there and it _hurt, _but that was how it was. 

Steve blinked and turned his focus back to the room. Everybody was looking at him with cautious eyes, nobody saying a word.

”Excuse me,” Steve said, looking at every one of them. His voice sounded distant but strong. ”I won’t be joining this mission. Sniper 380 will watch Agent Romanoff, who will be the Agent in command.”

Natasha nodded, as did Clint. Agent 380 looked around nervously. Steve hadn’t really looked at him since he had walked in the door, taking Bucky’s place.

Part of him just wanted to be mad at anyone but himself for just a second, but now that he had time to actually look, he immediately felt bad about it. 380 couldn’t be older than 23, eyes wide, not quite meeting his.

  
”Would you like assistance in watching Agent Romanoff, Sniper 380?” Steve asked, placing his hands on the table in front of him, trying to look as non threatening as possible. He remembered the first team he had been assigned to. Bucky hadn’t been part of it, having to take extra training classes for the position as sniper in addition to his training as field agent. That’s where he’s first met Clint, too.

”I - ,” the boy started clenching his eyes a bit, as if he was trying to find out if the question was some kind of trap, but then pursed his lips, determined. ”Yes, Agent Rogers. I think it would be best if I was accompanied by another Sniper, just for this mission.”

Steve nodded, honesty had always been something he appreciated. ”Ok, 380.”

Steve was sitting on Sam’s couch when Natasha texted him, telling him that the mission was tactical success even though they didn’t find the RedSkull. Steve didn’t answer and put his phone back in pocket.

His lock screen was a picture of Bucky, has been for years. Steve wondered if he’ll ever have it in him to change it.

”I went to work yesterday,” Steve said, looking at Sam. ”But I the decided on my own accords to go home and take some more time off.”

Sam looked at him over the bowl of soup that he was balancing on one of his hands while eating with the other. ”It’s the right thing to do, Steve. The world isn’t going to end just because you take some sick days. Your first priority should be you right now.”

Steve rubbed with his hand over his face, shooting Sam a tired smile. ”Yeah,” he agreed, trying to forget about all the other things he actually had to think about first. Like the funeral that missed a few details still. Also, picking the fitting gravestone for Bucky turned out to be one of the hardest things Steve has ever had to do. ”I think I had a little breakthrough. I feel better.”

He did. Not to say that he felt _good_ but he felt a bit better than he had yesterday and the day before that. Since the incident at work, when he for the first time really took a second to actually think about the fact that Bucky was gone, he felt as if he could start to get through it. 

Steve doubted that he could ever be really fine and happy again, but he could work towards getting his life back on track, at least.

He has to get used to this. This was his new _normal_.

Bucky would have been proud of him for it.

Sam shot a little smile his way. Steve noted how tired his friend actually looked. He began to realise more and more how many people actually cared for Bucky. How many friends, partners and family members actually were grieving, too. ”That’s a first step,” Sam said, wistfully.

Steve pulled one corner of his mouth up lazily, letting Sam know that he agreed.

Maybe he was right and it really was the first step for Steve to finally feel a bit more alive again. To maybe heal as far as he could. Not right now and certainly not tomorrow but who knew? Maybe one day he could go to sleep without nightmares and wake up without the aching pain of being utterly alone in a space he used to share with the love of his life.

Maybe the second step would follow soon. Bringing the third.

Yes, maybe Steve could recover. Step by step, slowly, forever missing Bucky, but maybe adjusting to what it meant to be the one who survived. No matter how much he wished he hadn’t been it.

As it turned out, step by step was maybe a good concept but not for him. He woke up at 4 in the morning, shaking reaching out for Bucky’s side of the bed, grasping nothing but cold sheets.

He didn’t sleep for three days after that. 

Steve blamed his lack of sleep for his confusion over the sound of his phone ringing. He sat in front of the couch, his back leaned against it, starring at the switched off television. He jumped at the sound, taking a second too long to identify it and then two more to actually find his phone in the depth between the sofa cushions.

”Rogers,” he said, his voice hoarse.

”Steve,” Natasha greeted him, sounding rushed. Steve immediately felt himself wake up a bit more at how uncharacteristically uncollected she sounded. ”You need to come in. We had a security breach at HQ.”

Steve stood up, using the couch to help him to his feet, his spine cracking. ”Who?” He asked shortly, pulling a hoodie over his head and then put a jacket on.

”They appear to be HYDRA, but they had good knowledge of the layout of the place. They knew how to avoid all the cameras, they had managed to get 15 agents in, no one saw them coming.”

Steve stopped putting his shoes on for a moment, frowning. ”Possible leak in S.H.I.E.L.D?” He asked, bewildered.

”Yes,” Natasha confirmed, her voice tight. ”You need to come in as soon as possible, we need every agent we can trust on scene.”

”I’ll be there in 10.”

Steve looked around the room. Agent Fury was standing behind his desk, Clint sitting on it cross legged, Natasha stood next to him and Tony was leaning against the far wall, face hidden behind his orange tainted sunglasses. Agent Hill stood by the door, greeting Steve first together with another blonde Agent.

”That’s everybody?” Clint asked, bracing his arm on his knee and resting his head on his hand. ”Shit.”

Steve looked around the room once more, nodding at everybody in greeting.

”No,” Fury answered slowly and walked around his desk to lean against its front, arms crossed. ”But you are my best Agents and also the only ones listed in the protocol Alpha Red 4332. We have been compromised.”

”Any traces?” Steve asked, stepping further into the room. ”Any leads?”

Fury looked him in the eyes, expression carefully blank. ”Agent Rumlow, as we knew. Agent Sittwell Level 5, too.”

”Ward, too,” Natasha added, shaking her head to herself.

”Yes, Agent Ward Level 3,” Fury confirmed and turned back to Steve from where he’d been looking at Natasha. ”That’s all leaks we can confirmed for now, but there are likely more.”

Steve nodded and frowned. ”What did they want? HYDRA infiltrated HQ, do we know what they searched for?”

The way Fury’s shoulders tensed minutely was the only warning Steve would get.

”I think, Captain,” Fury said slowly, making more alarm bells go off in Steve’s head. ”This is a conversation we should have in private. Do you mind?”

Steve raised an eyebrow in question, trying to think of a reason why this break in should be personally related to him. He barely registered the others clearing out, Clint and Tony scowling in disagreement, till only the director and Natasha were left in the room with him. 

  
”What is it?” Steve asked, nervousness sneaking up on him.

”How much do you know about the circumstances regarding your husband’s passing?” Fury asked right away.

Steve could only stare at him completely blankly. ”What?” He managed to get out, sounding strangled.

_Bucky in his arms._

_I don’t know what’s happening._

I don’t want it to happen.

_Red._

_So much red._

”Captain Rogers, how many information do you have about how it came to the passing of your husband?” Fury repeated, making Steve just wish he had slept longer than for a few hours, days ago.

”I know,” Steve started, hoping that if he just looked at the director long enough he would stop torturing Steve with these questions. ”That the medic was too late to save him. I know what it’s like to feel my husband’s pulse fade away from underneath my fingertips, not a thing I could do about it, _Director,” _Steve spit out, challenge as clear in his voice as agony.

”Captain,” Fury answered in the same tone, looking at him intently. ”How many details do you know about how it even came to that?”

Steve was about to challenge him more, just to see how far Fury would actually take this, but then he just stopped short.

How much _did _he know, really.

”I —”, Steve started and then looking at Natasha for a helpless second. ”I know that the target was not the man we’ve mistaken him for. Sniper 379 was already running to him by the time I realised that.”

”Yes,” Fury confirmed, his face softening minutely. ”And what happened then?”

Steve felt his eyes starting to burn, but he pushed the tears away. ”I began to run up to him, I tried to make him stop, I tried —” Steve took a shuddering breath, feeling his shoulders slump with the sheer weight of the most painful memories he’s got. ”I ordered him to stop, but it was too late. The explosion went off and he just — he just laid there. I couldn’t -”

Steve steadied himself on the back of a chair, looking to the ground.

He couldn’t _save _him.

He couldn’t save _him._

_”_Captain,” Fury said, stepping closer to him but didn’t reach out. ”What do you know about the explosion?”

Steve looked back up at the director, frowning, heaving every breath. ”What?” He asked, confused, feeling completely, utterly exhausted. ”I don’t —” He stopped himself, turning to look at Natasha at the realisation. He had no idea how it had really come to all of it, he just had the assumption that the target had shot.

”Steve,” Natasha started softly. ”Bucky was running to the mistaken target. The target talked to him, which caused Rumlow to first shoot the target and then throw a grenade at both of them. Stark has checked the archive and found a match of the target, the POW Sergeant Charlie Reagen, kidnapped on the May 3rd last year.”

Steve blinked at her, not quite knowing if he heard her right. ”Rumlow killed Bucky?” He breathed, distinctly noting that his vision blurred around the edges.

He didn’t know if this helped him. Having someone to actually blame, other than himself. All Steve knew for sure, was that Bucky was gone and he wasn’t coming back.

”Yes,” Fury stated drily, but the left corner of his mouth pulled up slightly. Steve knew grieve when he saw it. ”Rumlow really wanted to keep whatever intel Charlie has given Sniper 379 to stay a secret. It must have been important.”

”Rumlow won’t see daylight ever again, I made sure of it personally. He’ll be locked away for the rest of his life,” Natasha stated, quietly. Steve didn’t feel the slightest bit better.

Steve nodded his head and then sat down in the chair he was leaning on, when he felt like his legs might give in. ”Is this what the break in was about? HYDRA wanted to find Rumlow?”

Fury shock his head slightly. ”No. He isn’t locked up here, he is in the highest security prison S.H.I.E.L.D could trust, located in Berlin, Germany. There is no paper trail here leading to him, no clues for his whereabouts.”

Steve raised his eyebrows, cocking his head to the side. ”So what did they search for then?”

Fury cleared his throat and intently didn’t look at Steve. ”Sniper 379.”

Steve didn’t quite remember how he got from the office to the toilets, but he slid to the ground on the way next to the sinks before he even realised that he was hyperventilating.

HYDRA broke in to steal his husband’s body?

To make sure he really would keep quiet?

Steve put his face in his hands, trying to get his breathing under control but failing. They just couldn’t let him rest? They really had to hunt him, beyond death?

Steve took a shallow breath, running a hand through his hair.

Bucky didn’t deserve this.

”Bucky was a good man,” Steve whispered to himself, as if he was trying to prove it to the whole world. As if he was making HYDRA understand that they had to let him go. They’ve already taken him from Steve, why wouldn’t they _stop?_

_”_Yes, he was,” Natasha said from above him, but Steve didn’t look up.

”He didn’t ask for any of this,” Steve continued, not quite knowing if he was saying it to Nat or himself. ”He just wanted to stay in bed with me all day and eat pancakes. He didn’t - We had so many plans.”

Steve heard Natasha sit down next to him but not touching him. ”I know.”

He didn’t answer anything to that, just let the silence wash over them, his breathing and the air conditioning the only sounds between them.

It was Nat who talked first after waiting for Steve to stop shaking. ”We need you to look at his body again.”

Steve whipped around, looking at her incredulously. ”You need me to do what?”

_Bucky’s bleeding left eye._

_So many cuts all over his face._

_His torn up left arm._

Natasha sighed deeply, looking regretful, as if she actually didn’t want to do anything less than asking him to do that. ”It’s protocol. They got to the morgue when they broke in. We need to make sure that it really still is his body.”

Steve just starred at her. He didn’t even blink and neither did she.

It would be funny, if she didn’t look so dead serious. Steve swallowed and cleared his throat. ”You want me to identify my husband’s body.”  
  
”Yes,” she answered, shortly but not rude. It really was just that.

”Nat,” Steve said, just as serious as she was. He needed her to understand him right now. ”I can’t.”

Nat turned slightly so she didn’t have to turn her head to look at him. ”I don’t like that I have to ask this of you, but I have to insist.”

Steve shock his head, jumping to his feet, ignoring the dizzy feeling in his head. ”And I have to _insist _that I can’t do that. Nat, don’t ask this of me.”

_Bloody, empty eyes._

_The deep cuts on Bucky’s torso, so deep Steve swore he could see his husband’s ribs._

Steve closed his eyes, trying to stop tears from escaping his eyes. ”Please,” he added.

Natasha got to her feet gracefully, walking over to him slowly. ”Steve, you need to.”

Steve huffed and stepped back, not letting her reach him, suddenly feeling furious and unbelievably tired. ”Why do I have to identify him? Why can’t you do that?” He tried to reason, forcing the actual words he wanted to say back down his throat.

The brutal, pathetic truth that he didn’t know if he could survive seeing Bucky like this again. That he didn’t want even more nightmare potential for his brain to choose from.

That he was terrified to see his husband, his sweet - caring - funny - full of life and laughter - husband, lying unmoving on the metal table in the morgue. Steve doubted he could ever come back from that.

He was barely holding on as it was.

”Steve.” Natasha took another step closer to him and he let her. ”Last time you saw him, he was ripped to pieces.” _Red. So much red. Bucky awfully pale, his easy smile missing from his white face._ ”The team from the morgue, they cleaned him up. I want you to -” Natasha put her hand on his cheek, guiding him to look in her honest eyes. "I want you to remember him like that.”

Steve closed his eyes and took a deep breath, not knowing if he was going to regret this, but he guessed so. ”Okay.”

Bucky’s body was completely pale. He wasn’t clothed, but had a towel lying over his hips. His left arm was missing from the shoulder downwards.

His eyes were closed, face relaxed. It felt like a lie. Bucky hadn’t been relaxed when he had died. He had been scared and in agony.

Steve couldn’t hold in the sob that escaped him when he looked at his husband. ”Oh, Bucky,” he whispered, feeling a tear escape his right eye, doing nothing to stop it. ”I love you.”

Bucky has been a beautiful man. Steve had always known that. Tony had joked about how lucky Bucky was for landing Steve, but he truly was the lucky one.

”Can you confirm his identity?” Fury said from behind him. Steve didn’t flinch but felt intruded. It made every sense in the world that Fury was here but he just wanted to have minute to tell his husband how sorry he was, in private.

Everybody might think that it wasn’t his fault, but he knew better. Bucky had trusted him. Steve has been in charge and he lost the most important thing in his life.

”We stopped the HYRDA agents before they could actually reach him, so they couldn’t really have compromised him, but better safe than sorry."

Steve nodded silently, rubbing the tears off of his cheeks in a hurried movement, even though he had every reason to cry and not one he had to justify to his director. ”Yes,” Steve confirmed again, stepping closer to his husband.

He stayed silent after that, just starred. Not saying anything was better than the painful _I am sorry, I am sorry, I told you I would always be by your side but I failed you_ that was the only thing he could think of to say right now.

He really had been the lucky one.

Steve felt the wedding ring on his hand, trying to comfort himself but only making it worse.

Bucky had chosen their rings. He told Steve he’d go and buy hot pink ones and Steve hadn’t known how to make him understand that he’d wear pink ones as proudly as any other colour.

Bucky had come home with simple golden ones, smiling mischievously.

_”What did you do?” Steve asked suspiciously._

_Bucky shrugged walking over and pressing a soft kiss to Steve’s temple. ”Nothing I didn’t say I would do.”_

_Steve clenched his eyes, taking the black velvet box from Bucky’s hands, taking one of the rings out, turning it around in his hand._

_It took him a second before he saw it. ”You didn’t,” Steve said, laughing._

_Bucky took the other ring out of the box and showed it off to Steve. ”I said I would.”_

_On the inside of each ring was a little pink flower engraved. ”Marvel the flowers I have made,” Steve said, barely registering how wet his eyes got over how deeply moved he was. He looked up at Bucky, who was grinning at him, nodding._

_”I know it’s, like, cheesy, but I thought it would fit,” he said, sounding a bit insecure, watching Steve closely._

_Steve pressed a little kiss to his lips, his cheek and his temple. "I am ridiculously in love with you,” he observed out loud. It was true. He was so in love with his fiancé, there was nothing to be mistaken about it._

_”I know, Rogers,” Bucky laughed, wrinkles forming around his face. ”You look like you’ll cry happy tears over pink flowers. You are so far gone for me, damn.”_

_”I am,” Steve nodded, knowing that he had nothing to be embarrassed about. Bucky was everything he has ever hoped to find._

_”You are a cheeseball,” Bucky teased, poking his side. Steve laughed with him, pulling him to his chest, holding him close._

_”I love you.”_

_Bucky sighed happily. ”I love you more.”_

_”_Where did you put his ring?” Steve asked over his shoulder, hoping that he could have at least that part of him back.

Steve’s eyes wandered down Bucky’s right arm, where Bucky used to wear his ring when they were on missions and then just stopped, his whole world slowing down.

The air around him suddenly felt impossibly heavy on his shoulders. 

Bucky and him had been on an undercover mission in the dessert for two month a few weeks ago. Bucky had loved his new tan, saying that Steve looked whiter than ever next to him. He had pulled his ring off of the finger on his right hand every other day to show Steve how much tanner he has gotten, comparing the tan line from where the ring prevented the sun to reach his skin.

There was nothing there. 

His right ring finger was tan line free. 

Steve spun around to face Fury, eyes wide.

He didn’t know much in the past few weeks, living hour to hour rather than actually be alive, but he knew Bucky’s_ body._

It was not his body.

It was not _his_ body.

“This isn’t his body” Steve said, breathless, heart bumping in his chest. “This isn’t Bucky’s body.”

Steve looked at Fury, confused. The director had just told him that the agents hadn’t actually reached Bucky, so there was no way they had switched him, which meant this has never been Bucky to begin with.

Steve felt a strange rush of hope inside of him, even though he couldn’t say what he was hoping for.

He snapped out of it, when he heard Fury curse softly underneath his breath. Steve’s eyes fixated on him, just staring.

There wasn’t surprise on his face. Nothing. No relieve, no question, no confusion.

Why wasn’t he relieved?

Steve took a step back, away from both the body and Fury.

Why didn’t Fury look more concerned about it? 

And that was when it all shifted a bit violently into place. Steve took a shuddering breath, bracing himself.

“But you already knew that, didn’t you?” He asked, squaring his shoulders, barely registering Natasha who came to stand next to the director.

Fury took a deep breath and sighed. ”Where did we mess up?”

Steve didn’t answer him, just stepping back further, mistrust and betrayal sitting heavy in his chest. His brain was running a mile a minute, trying to fit the pieces together, but just not getting to the explanation.

Steve clenched his eyes, hand wandering to the gun strapped to his thigh, but not pulling it out just yet. ”What did you do to my husband?” he gritted out, not answering Fury’s question. “Where is Bucky right now?”

”Steve,” Natasha chimed in, but Steve shock his head, eyes fixed on Fury.

”Where is my husband?” 

Fury nodded slowly and then sighed again. ”He is in the hospital.”

Steve felt his whole world stop, his back hitting the wall of the room. His breath was quick and shallow again, but he didn’t care and just continued to stare at them wide eyed. "So if he is recovering,” Steve forced out, still not knowing how all of this played together. ”Why all this? Why lie to me? Why let me believe my husband died?”

Steve wanted to be happy. He wanted to give in to the happiness spreading inside of him, but there was a catch, he just knew it. He just didn’t know what it was. He didn’t want to risk actually believing in the possibility that Bucky might actually be okay, because he didn’t know if he’d survive losing him all over again.

Fury just looked at him for a long moment before he spoke up again. ”It’s complicated.”

Steve scoffed, trying to stop the world from spinning so fast around him. He felt like he might fall over any second. ”What have you done to my husband?” He gritted out, staring Fury down.

”I think we should talk about that in my office,” he answered slowly.

Steve shock his head, staying right where he was. ”What did you do?” He repeated stubbornly, glancing back to the body that wasn’t Bucky’s but so similar. So easy to believe.

”How much do you know about why Agent Phillip Coulson is still alive?” Fury gave in, his eye fixed on Steve.

”I know enough. I know that you were able to save him with the T.A.H.I.T.Iproject, rescuing him with alien tech.” Steve turned back to both the director and Natasha, glaring, walking closer to them. He hoped they saw it as the warning it was. The only one they’d get. ”I also know that it was listed as so inhumane that there wasn’t further research about it. Agent Coulson has begged to die during the procedure, never quite recovering from it.”

Fury nodded, staying silent.

Steve stopped in his tracks, not liking how to pieces finally came together one by one.

He’d hoped Fury would deny it. Maybe argue that he’d never go against his own protocol and make other people suffer as much as Coulson had.

He didn’t deny it, though.

”Why?” Steve asked, not knowing how long he could stop himself from picking a fight. Fury had made Bucky suffer. But it still didn’t make any sense. ”Why rescue him?”

Steve was sure he couldn’t carry the weight of his emotions. He felt heartbroken. Happy but devastated.

Hopeful, but he didn’t know if it was cruel feel that way.

He hoped he’d get Bucky back. But he also hoped that Buck’d just finally find the peace he’d deserved. Why did people just keep making him miserable?

Fury cleared his throat. ”I wish I could say that it was out of personal preference but, Agent Rogers, Sniper 379 had intel that we needed. The target talked to him, S.H.I.E.L.D had been compromised, we needed every lead we could get.”

Steve felt the purest anger he has ever in his life, flame up inside him. Anger that only Bucky never failed to save him from. He stepped right into his director’s personal space, starring him down, not knowing if his body could contain all his rage.

”Where is the line for you, Captain Fury? Where do you ever stop?” Steve all but whispered, unblinking.

Fury raised an unimpressed eyebrow, but Steve saw right through him. Fury was concerned, at least, and he should be. Steve wasn’t even sure what he was willing to do but he knew that it never seemed to have a limit, not when it came to Bucky. 

”Shouldn’t you be the happiest person on earth about this?” Fury asked.

Steve scoffed, not wanting to give him the satisfaction of knowing that yes, Steve was over the moon. He really was. But he was also sure that he was still too shocked to even really realise what it meant. He couldn’t quite grasp the idea yet that his husband really was still there. 

”About what?” He answered instead. ”You, using my husband beyond death for your damn organisation?” Steve was grateful, though. Even though he didn’t want to admit it to Fury.

”I have to make tough calls, Agent Rogers. HYDRA has plans, they are about to kill millions and they are always steps ahead of us. We had no leads, no traces, Agent Barnes was the only one who could help us. It was a tough decision but I am convinced that I made the right call.”

Steve scoffed, not dignifying this with an answer. He turned to Natasha wishing it would surprise him more, that she didn’t looked too shocked either. No betrayal anywhere in her features.

”You knew too, didn’t you?”

Natasha had the decency to look regretful, at least. ”Steve, I wanted to tell you. But I had signed none disclosure agreements, hours of paper work. I couldn’t talk about it.”

Steve raised his eyebrows unimpressed, distinctly feeling tears burning in his eyes. He didn’t know how to handle this. No training in the whole world could have prepared him for this. For the confusion, pain but also happiness in his chest. It was as if all his emotions were running in circles, not quite knowing what he should feel either.

”You watched me plan a funeral,” he said to Natasha, voice dangerously quiet. ”How long, Nat? How long did you watch me break over my husband’s death while knowing that he was alive? Would you have ever told me? If I hadn’t found out, would you have told me?”

Natasha kept eye contact with him, her eyes drowning in guilt, but the rest of her face carefully blank. ”Steve, I couldn’t.”

”I planned a funeral! Natasha,” Steve repeated, because he needed her to hear it. To _understand_. He had to write a speech for his husband’s funeral and she has done nothing but stood by and watched. ”I had to get up and plan a funeral. I called his _mother_. I had to call up his whole family and tell them that Bucky wouldn’t come home for Christmas, or New Year’s Eve or ever again, because I failed to protect him.” Steve harshly brushed a tear from his face at the memory of Bucky’s mother sobbing over having lost her only son, way too soon. ”I wrote a speech. I even asked you to also say something there. You watched me fall apart and plan my husband’s funeral while you knew he was alive?”

Steve didn’t even know if he recognised Natasha right now. It was as if he has never known her at all. He’d thought their friendship was built on enough trust that he could always count on her. Now he wasn’t so sure how he’d ever even been able to talk to her at all.

”I think all these years fighting the bad guys, pretending to be the good guys, you slowly became one yourself. Where is the difference anymore?” Steve knew he was going far, maybe even too far. Overstepping the line of no return, but solemnly knowing that Natasha had crossed this line long ago.

”I am sorry, Steve,” Natasha answered, suddenly looking a lot younger, reminding Steve of how she even got here. What she had to live through. That maybe she did have good reasons, commitment to Fury and her job, or maybe even more, other reasons but he couldn’t find it in him to care right now, though. 

  
Steve shock his head, turning back to Fury. There was still a piece missing and Steve just couldn’t figure out what it was.

”Why didn’t you tell me” Steve asked the director and stopped his effort to brush the tears off his face that had sneaked past his control. ”If my husband is alive and recovering, why keep it a secret from me?”

”It’s complicated, Agent,” Fury answered calculated. Steve was not impressed.

”It always is. No more games, Fury. Why didn’t you tell me?” Steve demanded, hoping the sheer rage he was feeling showed him how serious he was.

”Agent, there is a reason why this procedure is prohibited and the experiments with it stopped. The pain your husband endured, we had to make him forget. To ensure that he would not try and take his own life whenever thinking about it.”

Steve huffed, feeling his exhaustion catching up with him again. ”Okay,” he answered instead of picking a fight over it. He wanted to, but he knew that he first needed to know everything that had been kept from him before. ”If he doesn’t remember me, I could still see him? Make him remember only me, not the pain? Help him recover?”

Fury looked heartbroken for him for only a moment, before he let a frown take over his face again. ”It’s not that easy. He mustn’t remember, it’s for his own safety. Also, HYRDA knows about your evolvement. They have already broken in here to find him, they know that you two were in a relationship, they have his files. They know everything. We cannot risk that they find him.”

”What are you saying?” Steve didn’t know if he could physically stand the entire loss of hope that flooded through him.

”To protect him we had to give him a new identity, a new life. As far from the James Barnes that you’ve known, together with Agents to look out for him.”

”Then why even take the risk of letting me identify the body?” Steve asked, he felt like the ground was going to swallow him any second now.

”We needed to make sure that you have seen him dead. Dead in the morgue, too late for any help. This way, if you met him on the street, you wouldn’t believe it and not compromise the mission,” Fury explained to him slowly, as if he couldn’t even hear how wrong that all sounded.

Steve nodded, waiting for another catch in all of it.

Her name was Sharon Carter. She was a blonde woman, who smiled at Steve like she wasn’t part of the reason his world was suddenly feeling like it didn’t spin anymore. Everything around him just seemed to have stopped.

She was an agent with clearance level 8, specialized in undercover ops, which was why Steve has never met her before now. Part of him wished he still hadn’t.

”We know what Agent Barnes means to you, Agent Rogers,” Agent Hill sat opposite to him at the conference table, Agent Carter on her right, Fury wasn’t present. Steve nodded as answer, still not able to take his eyes away from Sharon. ”But he is a walking security risk and we cannot have that. It’s safer this way.”

Steve scoffed and crossed his arms. Hill was repeating herself and she’d have to keep doing so because Steve was not convinced of it and won’t ever be. He was ready to make this as hard as possible for her, no matter what.

”I can take care of him!” Steve called out, pulling his eyebrows down. ”Bucky won’t talk, you know him. He is one of the best agents we have. He is loyal.”

Hill put her palms up on the table in front of her. ”He has been compromised.”

”He will be fine. He won’t talk, I’ll make sure of it,” Steve answered, irritated. She called Bucky’s death a _compromise_. Like a little hick up along the way instead of the worst thing that has ever happened to Steve.

”We have protocols for a reason, Captain. Separate your feelings from this decision, you have been trained better than this.”

”He is a person! Not a protocol.”

”Agent Rogers,” Hill started but Steve interrupted her, changing his gear.

”No. No. Please don’t take him away from me.” _Again_, he didn’t say, well aware that he was begging and also that he was not above it.

They wanted to keep him from his husband, telling Bucky instead that he was married to Agent Carter, to keep him save.

As if he wasn’t safe with Steve.

As if Steve were to ever let something like this happen again. As if he were to forgive himself for the first time.

”Steven,” Hill answered, looking at him with deep empathy, as if she had any way to understand what they were asking of him. ”Agent Carter has been trained for this. We need to make sure that HYDRA won’t find him. Right now they know his status, they know his history, they know his sexual orientation. This is the easiest way to keep him under the radar until we can be sure that HYDRA is defeated. Then we can look into reintroducing him to you, but even then we cannot promise that we will succeed. You would most likely trigger his memory and we can’t save him from that.”

Steve wanted to yell in her face. Wanted to make her understand that Bucky would never need to be saved from him.

”He cannot consent to that, Hill. He wouldn’t know what is happening. You think your little trick changed him into a straight man? Bucky would notice,” Steve scoffed out, trying to attack their plan from the root again, making them understand how stupid they sounded.

”We know that,” Hill reassured. ”It’s a temporary solution at best, but also the only thing we can offer right now.”

Steve just starred at her. ”Why her?” He asked at last, sounding oddly broken even to his own ears. 

  
”She just was the best fit. SHIELD has been compromised, Agent Carter is the only one with clearance 8 and fitting training. We don’t have any other Agent, unfortunately that includes not a male one, who we could trust with this mission. I am deeply sorry, Agent.”

The worst thing was, he believed her, but it didn’t change a thing.

Steve raised an eyebrow at the women in front of him. ”So, what do you need me to do?”

Hill cleared her throat, smoothing out the flawlessly unwrinkled file in front of her. ”We need to slowly reintroduce Agent Barnes to his old life, as closely as we can, without making him aware of SHIELD or his medial treatment.”

Steve just kept on looking at her, not answering.

She nodded, returning his gaze. ”We need personal information about Agent Barnes. Anything his wife should know about him.”

He kept starring some more, because his first reaction was to straight out refuse.

Steve didn’t want to give all that up. He didn’t want her to know him. Not like this.

”Bucky is amazing,” Steve said slowly, knowing that he made this harder for everyone and not willing to stop either. ”If she wants to get to know him, she just should."

”You’re behaving like a child,” Hill sighed. Steve shrugged, hoping he looked indifferent. He knew he did. But who could blame him for it.

He kept stubborn eye contact with her for a few more seconds, taking everything in.

Hill looked tired. A lot less calculated than she normally did. Steve turned his eyes to Agent Carter. She looked right back at him, but discomfort so heavy around her that Steve swore he could feel it on his skin. 

”His twin sister, Rebecca, is his best friend. He swears he isn’t as lame as that and keeps denying it, but they are really close. Always have been,” he gritted out, pretending like the memory of his husband alone didn’t hurt him but making him feel fond and deeply in love all the same.

He kept on talking after that. His whole life revolved around Bucky one way or another, he could talk about him for hours.

”He only likes apple pie,” Steve finished, playing with his wedding ring. ”Because he had a piece of cherry pie in third grade that gave him stomach aches for two days.” He felt like he needed to prove it them. How well he knew everything about Bucky. How well he could help him. If Bucky needed to be reintroduced to his life then there wasn’t a better person to help him than Steve.

”We got it, Steve,” Hill looked at him, eyebrows raised. She looked sad, too. Steve was convinced she didn’t have the right to do so. ”You really know him.”

”We have been married for _years_, Hill,” Steve tried again, knowing that this wouldn’t be the last time he’d start this argument again. There wasn’t a thing he wouldn’t do for Bucky and he would definitely not let him rot somewhere in an unhappy marriage with a women for safety reasons. ”We have been dating since we were 18. Then why even give him a wife? I could help him myself! Not even saying anything about SHIELD if that’s what you’re so worried about. Leave the states, if that’s what you want. You’d never see us again.”

Hill smiled sadly at him. Agent Carter did, too. 

Latter opened her mouth for the first time in an hour, her eyes swimming in regret. ”For what it’s worth,” she said standing up slowly. ”I wish there was another way, too.”

Steve knew he wasn’t allowed here. He’d like to see what they’d do against it though. He carefully walked one step closer to his unconscious husband on the hospital bed.

He was pale, his hair growing a bit longer than it had been before. His left sleeve was empty and pinned up.

Steve loved him. Loved him so deeply, so unconditionally that all he wanted to do was never leave. Stay here by his side and never go, not ever again. 

Steve was horrified for him, though, so much that it even overshadowed the happiness that was blooming in his chest. “What have they done to you?” 


	2. Chapter 2

**Bucky:**

Waking up was the most scary thing. For a second, there was something in his mind. Something terrifying, awfully shrill, feeling as if it swallowed him whole and then it was gone.

Everything was just gone.

He knew how to talk. He knew all the words. He didn’t know where he knew them from, though. Didn’t know who taught him to speak, how to write, didn’t know who he was.

Yes, the first thing he felt waking up was scared. After it followed the confusion.

The room was bright, flawless in every way, not a thing out of place. Next to him sat a blonde woman, who smiled at him softly.

He had no idea who she was.

He had no idea, who _he_ was.

”What?” He asked, throat hoarse. He flinched when he heard a fastening sound next to him, so he turned away from the woman and then watched his heart monitor warily. It quickened further.

He was scared, panicking and so utterly confused.

”Good morning, honey,” the woman said, smile widening. She looked tired, eying him carefully. ”How are you feeling?”

He starred at her a second longer, then let his eyes wander around the room some more. There was one single flower in a little vase on his nightstand, nothing else.

Where was he?

Who was she?

Who was _he?_

He whipped back around to her, not knowing what to ask first, anxiety growing stronger with every second of silence that passed. He took a deep breath, trying to not radiate panic, but knowing that he failed.”Who am I?”

The smile fell off the Blonde’s face, a frown appearing instead. ”What do you mean, honey?”

He tried to put his weight on his arms to sit up, lying down making him feel more and more vulnerable. He looked down in shock to where his left arm was supposed to be.

He had no idea who he was. What was happening. He didn’t know anything.

Nothing, but that he used to have both arms. He _knew._

He gasped, feeling his breathing fastening. ”What - what,” he got out, before his lungs failed him.

What have they done to him?

”James,” the Blonde said, getting off her chair and sat down on the edge of his bed instead. He didn’t like it. He didn’t want to be near her, he wanted an explanation. ”James, hey, take a deep breath for me, yes?”

He shock his head fanatically, trying to get as far away from her as possible. ”Who are _you?” _He asked desperately, throat sore.

Her frown deepened again. For a second she looked way older than the about 25 years he’d guessed her age to be. ”What do you mean?” She asked, voice thin.

He kept his eyes on her face, terrified to look back down to his left arm.

_Lack _of left arm.

He swallowed harshly, trying to somehow not pass out right here. ”I mean,” he tried to get out, feeling more dizzy with every shallow breath he took. ”Who are you?”

Her eyes grew impossibly wide, looking him once over. There were distinct wet streaks on her cheeks. ”I am Sharon Barnes. I am your wife.” She looked desperate and confused.

He could relate to that.

”Sharon,” he tried. It didn’t feel right. ”My wife.”

He was married. To a woman. Sharon. He looked down to his right hand. There was a faint line of where he supposedly wore his wedding ring, but no ring.

”Yes,” she nodded, another tear rolling down her cheek. ”Your name is James.”

_James_.

”What am I doing here?” _James_ asked, pulling his eyebrows down.

Sharon sniffled and took his hand in a fluid movement that seemed just a tick too calculated to be natural. James pulled his hand away. ”You had an accident. A drunk driver hit you on your motorbike. James, you were unconscious for _weeks_.”

She sobbed now.

James had no idea what to do with that.

”I can’t remember,” he said dumbly instead, as if it wasn’t obvious.

Sharon looked up at him with wide teary eyes. ”The doctor said that you might suffer memory loss from the accident and won’t remember it happening.”

James shock his head, finally able to sit up against the headboard. ”But I don’t remember _anything_.”

Sharon looked at him as if she had already tried to begin to come to terms with that but failing. ”Nothing?” She asked, sounding incredibly small. ”Not even me?”

James took a longer look at her. Studied her blond hair that fell messily over her shoulders and her brown eyes that looked sticky with tears. She had a thin gold band around her left ring finger. It had a few scratches on it but didn’t look too worn out yet.

He had absolutely no idea who this woman was, other than what she’d just told him.

”No,” he said. There wasn’t more to add.

She left a few minutes later, after calling doctors to check up on him. She pressed a light kiss to his forehead before getting up. James didn’t feel a thing.

The doctors explained to him that temporary or even permanent amnesia was an expected response for the trauma his brain has suffered through. They discussed different prothesis with him, too.

He didn’t want to hear it. Didn’t want to even think about the fact that he’s lost an arm. He didn’t look to his left for the whole evening.

James didn’t catch a second of sleep that night, desperately trying to figure out why he felt like everybody put 2 and 2 together and gotten 5.

The third thing he felt was utterly, breathtakingly_ alone._

The doctor never really talked to him, James realised on the third day of his stay at hospital. They were always talking to Sharon in hushed voices, too quiet for him to hear. James supposed it made sense, since he really couldn’t remember anything and needed to just rest and hope for his memories to return.

Still, with every reassuring smile Sharon shot his way, he felt like a little kid who wasn’t allowed at the adult’s table.

On the fourth day he only woke up shortly in the middle of the night. Sharon wasn’t on the chair next to him. James wasn’t surprised.

The day after, though, he woke up early with new found motivation to finally just _move_. James got up as carefully as he could and made his way over to the window. The leaves on the trees outside were already turning orange and brown, a light breeze shaking through them.

James had absolutely no idea where he was.

He realised soon after that he might just forever feel lost and out of place now.

Sharon visited him in the afternoon, she never seemed to stop smiling. ”How are you today, Jamie?” She asked, taking his pudding from the nightstand and opened it for him.

She held it out to him, so he could get some of it on his spoon, before answering her. ”Still confused,” he told her, nothing more.

James didn’t tell her that he was bored out of his mind. That sometimes his upper body hurt so bad, he just wanted to close his eyes and hope to fall asleep till it was all over. He also didn’t tell her that he has completely and utterly ignored that he had lost an arm. He didn’t look at it, didn’t think about it, banned it complete from his mind.

It got harder to ignore with every passing second, though.

Whenever his long hair fell in front of his eyes and he could put it in a bun with one arm. Putting on a t-shirt was also a lot harder than he’d ever imagine it being. Also eating a pudding with only one arm? He couldn’t figure out how that was supposed to work. He couldn’t even open it.

But right now he could still ignore it. Barely, but he had enough other things on his mind.

Sharon nodded empathetically. ”I can’t imagine what you are going through.”

Her eyes looked distinctly wet, as if she was in deep pain also. Bucky nodded, eating more of his pudding.

”How long have we been married?” James asked her after a few minutes of silence.

He still couldn’t wrap his head around the fact that he was _married. _He didn’t really know how old he’d guess himself, but too young to be married for sure.

Sharon put his empty pudding cup back on the nightstand and took his hand in hers. James didn’t like when she did that. She took all the movability he had left. He only had that one hand and when she held it in hers, he couldn’t do anything anymore. ”4 years,” she said, smiling softly. ”We married on August 31st, 2015.”

James looked at her, trying to return her smile. He knew it was 2019, he had asked. Yet, hearing it always felt unreal. ”That’s a long time,” he stated. Not in a particularly negative or positive way, he just repeated the fact.

What he meant to say, though, was that it was a long time to just forget, not remembering even a tiny piece of it.

Sharon laughed lightly, little wrinkles forming around her eyes. ”I suppose so. Feels like it was only yesterday that we married.”

She throw her hair over her shoulder, looking up at him from underneath her eyelashes, smiling fondly at him. She looked happy.

James didn’t think he could ever be happy again. He couldn’t remember the last time he was. The first time.

He smiled back.

Going home was weird. He had no memories to this place. As far as James was concerned was the house he was facing right now was just any other house. It wasn’t too small but only big enough for the two of them. It had a little garden in the front and red prick wall surrounding it.

He had no idea who he was but this felt weirdly like this wasn’t it. It wasn’t him.

”It’s pretty,” he said, looking at Sharon who was putting the key in the door and then swung it open.

”Wait till you see the furniture,” she said smiling, gesturing for him to go ahead and walk inside.

James had hoped that he’d walk in and just magically remember all he had forgotten. Instead, though, he was greeted by nothing but a light yellow hallway with shoes standing neatly underneath a rack for jackets.

There were pictures of the house itself on the walls and painting of running horses. Nothing personal, though.

”Pretty,” he repeated, not walking further inside.

Sharon walked past him to the foot of the staircase. ”The kitchen is at the end of the hallway. To your right is the living room. Upstairs is the bedroom.”

She sounded calculated, as if she had a list of things she needed to say in her head and was only working towards finishing it.

”Okay,” James answered, still not moving.

Sharon looked at him for a second longer before she sighed and pointed up the stairs. ”How about you catch some sleep before exploring? It has been an exhausting day.”

James had slept till late afternoon and then just sat in the car. He nodded anyway. ”Yes, I think I could sleep for a bit longer.”

He spend the next three days only in the rooms he really needed to go into. James has only seen the living room in passing, only moved from the bedroom to the kitchen to the bathroom and back. Sharon didn’t seem to mind, spending long hours of the days in her office anyway.

James was sitting at the kitchen counter on one of the bar chairs, sipping on his coffee. He had no idea how he used to like it, but no matter what he tried, nothing tasted quite right.

”I have to check in with work for a bit, would that be okay? I could bring take out on my way back,” she said softly, walking back over to him, laying a careful hand on the back of his head, playing with his hair.

James wished he could tie it up into a ponytail but he just couldn’t figure out how to with only one arm.

”Yes, no problem, go ahead.”

Sharon nodded and pressed a quick kiss to his cheek. ”I don’t want to leave you alone right now, but the doctor said it would probably be better to let you take it all in. Also, my boss is in for my head if I don’t bring him the reports he requested.”  
  
James had no idea what Sharon’s job even was. He nodded again. ”It’s no problem, really. I just want to lie back down anyway.”

He kept on sitting in the kitchen for slowly passing minutes before he got up with a sigh. There was no point in just sitting here and waiting. He didn’t even know what he was waiting _for_. It all felt so wrong and he was just waiting for something to feel right, but there was nothing.

The house was neat and tidy. The soft orange walls matched the carpet which matched the couch which matched the curtains.

It was flawless.

The couch had no dips in it, no stains or loose threats. It was perfect. James sat down cautiously and looked around once more.

There were no pictures other than paintings on the walls. There were decorations, tasteful vases with plastic flowers and little tin elephants here and there. It was clean, flawless. Not one item that would tell him anything about them living here. Nothing with character and personality. Nothing that looked like it had a fun story connected to it.

And maybe it was also just that. It was too flawless. There was not a thing out of place. It was spotless.

James laid his head back on the headrest of the couch and sighed again. It made him feel uneasy. To be in a strange place, not knowing anything but that it felt not right.

He spend the rest of the evening counting the animals that were either drawn on some painting or decorative items on various surfaces.

Sharon brought Chinese take out when she came home. They talked somewhat easily when eating, making James feel actually awake and alive for the first time since opening his eyes to a new world.

”Why don’t we have children?” James asked, looking from the Tv to Sharon who was sitting next to him on the couch, feet tucked underneath her.

Sharon looked up, little smile on her lips. She always seemed to be smiling. ”We never came around to it.”

James pulled his eyebrows together, turning to sit facing her. ”But we have been married for years.”

She closed her book and turned to him, too, suddenly a lot closer. ”You start to sound like my mother,” Sharon sounded amused, winking at him teasingly. ”There has always been something coming up. Debt for the house, starting new jobs, your accident. It just seemed like it never was the right moment for it.”

James nodded. ”But we did plan to have some?”

Sharon took his hand in hers and rubbed gently over his knuckles. ”Yes. You especially. You were always talking about having a little one to show the world to.”

He returned her smile softly. James didn’t know how he knew, but yes, he had always wanted to have children, he was certain of it. He didn’t even realise that he hadn’t answered her in a while, just looking into her eyes.

Her features were soft and fond. James leaned in instinctually, making eye contact for a moment longer to see if she wanted this. Sharon looked down to his lips for a second and then also came closer, after the smallest hesitation.

Their first kiss was chaste. Just their closed lips touching. It was soft and careful, only lasting for a couple of seconds. She looked up at him with big eyes afterwards, her smile softer than it ever has been before. James put his hand on her cheek, caressing it lightly.

James didn’t love her, he realised. He just knew it. He also knew that he would never be cruel enough to say that out loud. 

”Maybe some day,” he finally answered, keeping his eyes on her.

Sharon nodded putting her hand over his, he could feel her wedding ring cold against his skin. ”Yes, some day.”

It’s been 3 weeks since he’s woken up when James finally took the time to start to deal with the aftermath of his accident. He tried to live on in ignorance, but it wasn’t something he could ignore any longer.

Every time his hair was in his eyes and he couldn’t tie it up, he was getting irritated.

Every time he had to open a bottle by holding it between his tights and the uncap it, he felt his anger building up.

Everything that was supposed to be easy, day to day things, were an obstacle for him to overcome and he was feeling himself breaking under the pressure of it.

James looked in the mirror, starring at the big scar that went from his left shoulder down to his right hip. It was from his car accident, they’ve told him at the hospital.

He didn’t know why he just couldn’t believe that.

His left shoulder was scarred so badly, he could barely see his skin colour in between the scares. It didn’t hurt, though. It must have, but James could for the life of him not remember a second of it.

He moved his shoulder up and down, pointlessly.

James hated it. Hated that he was dependent on his wife. That he seemingly couldn’t do anything on his own anymore.

His doctors told him to go to PT as soon as he was feeling well enough to actually leave the house. They told him to not take things too fast; he should first get used to his new life, trying to find his place in it and then try and adjust to it.

James called bullshit. If he really took it step by step, one thing after the next, he’d never finish it all. He’d never get his life back, whatever that was.

He sighed as he picked up his phone and typed in the number for his PT trainer. He’s met her briefly when he was at the hospital but hadn’t really paid any attention to her. After a quick chat they made an appointment for Wednesday in two weeks.

James just hoped he’d still feel up to it then. He didn’t spare his reflection another glance when he put his shirt back on and all but ran out of the bathroom.

They kissed again but never really long or deep. More like a quick good morning kiss and one before going to sleep in the evening. They slept in the same bed, Sharon lying her head on his good shoulder, his arm around her. In the morning, though, they were always lying separated, as much space between them as possible, as if they suddenly repulsed each other while they were sleeping.

Sharon was sweet. On day 25, though, James realised that she seemed to lose her always present smile. That was also when James began to think more and more about all the things he didn’t want to think about.

His arm was just the tip of the ice berg and he grew more aware of it, the longer he spend sitting on the couch in the living room, trying to find anything that would explain everything to him.

”What about my family?” James asked into the silence between him and his wife. There always was this silence as if they’ve already said enough to each other.

”What was that, honey?” Sharon looked up from the pan in which she was scrambling eggs. James sat on a bar chair in front of her, across the kitchen island.

”My family,” James repeated, stealing one piece of egg out of the pan. Sharon hit him with the spatula playfully, laughing lightly. He smiled back. ”It’s been over a month and I haven’t heard a word from them. I do have a family, don’t I?” His voice sounded painfully small when he finished his question. He didn’t even know _that._ He didn’t even remember his own mother. He swallowed, the smile on his face forgotten.

”Oh,” Sharon answered. It was just that for a while, until she finished the eggs, turned the stove off and just let them sit. She walked around the stove till she stood next to him. ”James, dear.”

James turned around on his chair, looking into her warm eyes. She put both her hands on his cheeks and stroked over his beard. ”You’ve lost contact to them a long time ago.”

He leaned into the touch, eyebrows furrowed. He decided to ask about that more, later. ”Did I have siblings? Cousins? Anyone I still have contact to?”

Sharon shock her head minutely. ”You have three sisters. You were never close, though. When you lost contact with your parents, you didn’t hear from them again either.”

Nodding his head, he leaned closer to her. James had the feeling of doubt in his chest again, so pressing, eating on his organs. He wished he knew why so many things Sharon told him made him feel like it wasn’t the whole truth.

James also wished he knew if it was okay to ask if he’s always been like that. Paranoid, maybe. Distrusting. Or if that was just a new thing that came with his accident.

”What about friends?” He asked further. As bad as he wanted to know more about his family, it wasn’t the goal of this conversation. He’d bring it up again, later. First he needed to know if there were any other people who just _knew _him. Other people than his wife.

Sharon nodded, pressing a kiss to the wrinkle between his eyebrows. ”Yes. I told them to let you rest for a while, but they are burning to talk to you."

James took a deep, relieved breath. ”Did I have a best friend?” He asked, more hopeful this time.

”He’d be offended if he knew you even needed to ask that,” Sharon laughed lightly, looking into his eyes. ”I’ll ask your doctors when the best time would be for you to meet him again. I don’t want to overwhelm you.”

James walked up behind the couch, putting his hands on Sharon’s shoulders over the headrest. It’s been a slow few days, Sharon spending a lot of time home from work and James still didn’t really know what to do with that. He wasn’t used to being married to her. He didn’t know her.

He lived with her, though, and he really tried, he swore he did. Most of the time, though, it felt as if the walls were just coming in closer because wherever he went, she could easily follow.

It should be a good thing. Reassuring. It made him feel trapped more than anything, though.

He leaned down and pressed a soft kissed on her shoulders. James knew that he shouldn’t force this to work out, it’s only been a bit over a month since he’s woken up, there was no rush. But he couldn’t keep going like this.

Sharon looked up at him and smiled softly. James grinned right back as he leaned down again and pressed a kiss to her lips. She didn’t break the kiss even when it lasted far longer than their usual kisses did.

Determined he rounded the couch, sat down beside her and leaned right back to kiss her again, deeper this time. With more purpose.

It was what she wanted. And he also wanted it. More like needed it. Needed to know that all his thoughts were just him being a little off after the accident. That everything was good and normal.

He could do that.

Sharon kissed him back enthusiastically, pushing him back against the couch and went to straddle his lap. Her hands went from his jaw to his arm and side.

James held on to her hips, trying to get used to the feeling of her lips against his. Her hands on his skin.

He had to be able to do that.

It took for her hands to sink further south and into his pants for him to realise that he really just couldn’t. Not physically anyway. Her hand was small and cold and uncomfortable.

James broke the kiss, sighing frustrated, feeling himself blush in embarrassment. Sharon looked down to his uninterested crotch in question and then back up at him. She looked expectant but then not surprised. As if she has seen this coming.

James wondered if he could ask if that has happened before. It felt like a weirdly intimate thing to ask, even though he was part of the subject of the question.

He didn’t ask.

”This is not going to happen, is it?” Sharon asked softly, taking her hands out of his pants and put them on his shoulders instead and slid down to sit next to him. It shouldn’t be such a relief that she stopped touching his dick but it really just was.

James didn’t look at her as he bottomed his pants again, still feeling more and more embarrassment building up inside him. ”I’m sorry,” he muttered, his teeth clenched, not really knowing what else he could say to that.

James starred down to his hand, trying to will himself to step blushing. What had he been _thinking_?

“It’s fine,” Sharon assured him, leaving one of her hands on his shoulder. ”With the accident and all. You just need a bit more time to settle in your body again. It happens, James. It’s nothing to be embarrassed about.”

”Sure,” he answered, sounding stubborn, knowing that it was neither fine nor the accident, but beyond terrified of what the problem was if it wasn’t that.

Day 36 was even more quiet than the days before. James had found out just how small their house really was, making the active effort to avoid Sharon like she was the merchant of death. He also realised that the more he tried to not bump into her, the more every room of the damn house seemed like it was connected and had an open layout.

There was no hiding here. So James pretend that he just happened to love standing in the hallway, leaning between the drawn pictures on the wall for the best of his day, since it seemed to be the part of the house Sharon walk through the least.

She was mostly sitting on the couch, raising her eyebrows at him whenever he had to eventually walk past her, calling him an idiot in every way but verbally.

James knew he was behaving like a child. He also knew that not getting aroused while making out with his wife wasn’t the end of the world.

He _knew_ that. Theoretically.

But he also knew that it wasn’t even really the problem. Part of the problem, but not the whole thing anyway. He just didn’t know how long he could keep on lying to himself about that.

The first appointment at PT was exhausting and had him come home shaking and aching to sleep. It was also the day when he stopped trying to avoid Sharon, coming home and just walking straight into her arms.

It didn’t matter if he loved her or not. Not right now, anyway. She has been there for him and she understood him, kind of.

She led his head to lie on her shoulder while she just held him for what felt like hours.

James wished he knew why it felt like he wanted to be held by someone else.

”I want to go outside,” James stated into the silence of day 50. Sharon wasn’t reading this time but watching a movie instead.

”Okay, sure, honey” she said, nodding, switching the Tv off. ”Let me grab my jacket and we can go out to get groceries. I’ve been meaning to do that today anyway.”

James put his hand on her arm before she could get up, though. ”No, I meant,” he started and then stopped to find a way to say this without hurting her feelings. ”I want to go outside on my own. It’s been 2 months, I just want to feel a bit more independent again.”

Sharon didn’t look happy, her mouth was a straight line. ”Are you sure? It might be a bit too much for you, Jamie.”

James shock his head, determined. ”I’ll be okay. And I also have my phone with me in case something happens.”

She still didn’t look convinced but then sighed and put her head on his shoulder. ”Okay, honey. Do you want to get the groceries then or do you just want to take a walk?”

James pressed a soft kiss to the top of her head, taking her hand in his. ”I can go and get food, sure. I’ll be quick, promise.”

It turned out that grocery shopping was absolute hell, even more so since it was practically his first time in a store this big and full of people. James grabbed the handle of his shopping cart tighter and pushed through the aisles, doing his best expression of the show _Lost_ while he tried to find where they hid the eggs.

He wasn’t even sure he’d find the registers with how aimless he’s walked through the store for what felt like hours.

”Sorry,” James hushed to a young couple blocking the entire frozen aisle. He was growing more and more irritated with every step he took. He felt judged and starred at from every direction. Feeling as if every person who just as much as walked near him was starring at his obvious, empty left sleeve.

He pushed his shopping cart further, trying not to run a pyramid of cans over, when it unbalanced tried to escape from him yet again. James was about a second from calling Sharon to help him out of this, when he nearly straight out killed a man by driving over him.

”Excuse me,” James said quietly to the blond man who was standing in the baking aisle, holding pancake batter in his hand, just starring at it. ”You are kinda blocking my way, buddy.”

The man looked up at him, his mouth already open but no sound came from him. James was raising an eyebrow at him. The man paled, looking all but shocked and then turned on the heel of his foot and ran away.

James didn’t even question that. Not after he has spend an hour in the insanity that called itself a grocery store. ”Thanks very much, weirdo,” he muttered as he looked around the baking aisle.

He didn’t find eggs and just decided to call it quits. He did buy pancake batter, though.

James spend another two weeks stubbornly trying not to think of the one problem that just seemed the hardest to ignore on his pile of things to deal with.

In the back of his mind, though, he already knew the answer to the question he didn’t want to ask.

He wasn’t attracted to Sharon. He would never be, either. And it wasn’t because of anything she’s done, it was just who he was. Or, more accurately, what he _wasn’t._

But well, this was quite literally his second chance, he thought. There wasn’t anything he couldn’t be. So he would just try, James decided. He was most likely just confused and lashing out right now, anyway. Avoiding problems could very well make them go away.

It was day 78 when that thought process came back to him. James pretended that the last thing he saw before he came in the shower wasn’t a man with defined muscles, strong arms and bright blue eyes. He didn’t know how he long he could keep lying to himself about that.

On day 84 he gave up pretending and lying, to himself anyway.

And just like that he needed to know. Needed to find out if he has always been gay because then he could accept it. If he hadn’t been, though, he’d keep trying to love his wife. He’d keep trying to find an answer as to why he changed. He’d keep trying to find his way back to his old life.

James realised pretty quickly that he couldn’t just ask Sharon about that. Yeah, thad’d be an awfully lovely conversation with his wife, who has been nothing but supportive and understanding.

He looked up tentatively over to the man who sat opposite to him at the dinner table. Sharon had gone to her office to give them some time to bond again.

James has had the hope that he might at least recognize his supposed best friend, but he knew he wouldn’t the second he had opened the door and laid eyes on him. Mark had really short dark hair and dark eyes. He seemed to be smiling just as often as Sharon used to.

He had pulled James into a hug when he let him in, which had thrown him off but then Mark did turn out quite easy to talk to. More conversational than Sharon anyway.

Mark rolled some more spaghetti on his fork and then looked back at James. ”So, dude,” he said before eating his fork full. ”You really remember nothing? Like not at all?”

James liked how bold he was. He nodded easily, feeling not as distressed about it all anymore. ”Yeah, there’s nothing.”

”But like, basic math? All that?” Mark asked further, raising his eyebrows. ”Do you have the education of a 4th grader? Less?”

James laughed lightly, it felt good. ”I don’t know, man, it’s weird. Like, I do know stuff. I know maths and also biology and all that. But I don’t know how I know. Or how many details.”

Mark nodded, looking thoughtful. ”But that only means that there is something of the old you left, right? So that’s a good thing, I’d say in my absolutely not medical view.”

There was a soft smile fighting its way onto James’s face before he could help it. He’d never thought of it like that.

”Also,” Mark added, finishing the rest of his dinner. ”Just imagine how much more this could suck, dude. Like, you could have woken up and not remember how to speak. Or understand.”

”That would have been terrifying,” James stated, also thoughtful. He didn’t mention that he had been scared when he woke up nonetheless.

”Exactly what I’m saying,” Mark nodded. ”As for the rest? We’ll work on it, yeah? You’ll remember. And if you don’t, we’ll make new memories. Live high school all over again. Throw wild parties and all that.”

James shook his head, not able to fight another smile that lit up on his face. ”Thank you,” he said, not caring how pathetically honest it sounded.

He ended up enjoying the time with Mark so much, he forgot to ask what he had actually intended to. Maybe more like suppressed than forgot. James couldn’t find it in him to care, though. Talking with Mark has made him feel easier than he has in the full 93 days he has been awake.

Truth was, James didn’t quite remember when he has given up the hope to ever remember anything again, which was probably also one of the reasons why it hit him to hard when there was suddenly something so vague but clear in his head.

It was a memory, he just knew it. It was clear as day in his head. No picture, or important moment but yet, the first thing he got back

”If your secrets were like seeds?” He says carefully, voice barely containing his excitement. He felt like he has archived something.

Sharon looked up at him, really confused. “Excuse me?”

James pulled his eyebrows together. “Yes. If your secrets were like seeds,” he insisted, doubt building up in his stomach. ”And you say Hire a gardener for your grave.“

She didn’t even seem to listen to the words, just shot a smile his way. It was wide, maybe a bit too much so. “You remember?”

_Yes, _he wanted to say but didn’t,_ But you didn’t. _It sounded accusing. And yet it felt like she had just failed a test but he didn’t know why. Didn’t know why it felt so _right _that she didn’t know.

That in the back of his head he had already known she wouldn’t but he just couldn’t say _why_.

This was the first time she went into her office late at night and locked the door behind her. She made a hurried phone call. James couldn’t make out a word she was saying but she sounded distressed.

He didn’t know exactly what it was, but after that, it all seemed to go downhill.

When she come back to bed, she smiled again, not even a bit of it reaching her eyes.

He didn’t ever bring it up again, neither did she. But there was something new between them, a distance that James didn’t think they’d ever be able to close.

It just came naturally to him to spend as much time as he could outside of their house now. James couldn’t actually avoid her, not when she was quite literally one of the hand full people he knew, but yet, he was determined to try.

Jogging trough the park was something he realised calmed him down a lot. He had a lot of stamina, was well trained. He didn’t know where that came from though.

In the morning hours there were only a few parents with their kids, a girl with her dog and a blond man sitting on a bench, staring at the ground in front of him.

James noticed that he loved this kind of peaceful noise much more than the seemingly always present silence in his home.

He and Sharon didn’t really have anything in common, James realized on day 101. They always seemed to talk about their own things, only nodding to the other in acknowledgment but never really enthusiastic about the same thing. James wondered if it had always been this way or if it really was true that he has somehow become a totally different person after the accident.

”Did I ever mention,” James started, his heart in his throat. Mark raised his eyebrows up in question. ”Not being … _Happy_ in this relationship?”

James felt uncomfortable talking about this but Mark was his best friend. Supposedly. And he really began to be desperate. He couldn’t imagine that he hadn’t been gay before he fell into the coma but apparently he hasn’t been.

And it hurt to think about. It confused him and robbed him of his sleep. Made him feel dirty, like a fake, like he was just lashing out because of the whole situation.

Mark just ran a hand through his hair, looking slightly more attentive, now. Not paying more attention to the hot dog in his hand than to James, anymore. “No. Why?”

James nodded, sinking feeling deep inside his guts. He slowed their walking tempo even more and then just came to a stop a few seconds later. “Are you sure? I never mentioned being - unsatisfied?”

James didn’t think he could be more obvious about it. If Mark still didn’t know what he meant then that was all the proof he needed to know that apparently he actually had been happily married to Sharon before. Or he at least has never expressed his thoughts and doubts to his best friend.

Either way, James was disappointed.

“No?” Mark answered, sounding honestly confused. ”You good, man?”

James really wasn’t. ”Yeah, no it’s fine. I am just trying to actually figure out what my life was like before all of - well. This.”

Mark nodded, putting an arm around his shoulder. ”You seemed really happy before the accident.”

James smiled at him as answer. He doubted it, but he didn’t know how to tell his friend that.

Mark was texting furiously on his phone right after he walked James back to his house. It reminded him of Sharon, whenever he talked to her about important things. She always walked out to make a phone call, seeming distressed. Just like Mark did. But maybe James was just becoming really paranoid.

James couldn’t shake the feeling, though, that everybody around him just seemed to be constantly on their phones whenever he did something he’d label important.

Grocery shopping became his chore along the way. He didn’t mind it. It helped him to get back to normal. Although people still irritated him more often than not.

He liked shopping on Tuesday afternoons the most, he decided. There were always barely any people there. Right then he only saw one elder woman, a man with two kids and a sad looking blond man, who was all but stacking instant ramen in his card.

James stopped still for a second, turning back to look at the man again.

A blond man? Again?

James knew his brain was in a bad place, but he could _swear_ he has seen this man before.

He wanted to call it coincident. Call it paranoia. Tried to shake the feeling that he should know the him. Ignored his brain yelling at him that there was something to this man that was really important. He didn’t know why he looked so familiar, but he could swear he had met him before.

The _pancakes, _he remembered later, not able to shake the picture of the sad blond man.

On day 145 they didn’t fall asleep cuddled against each other anymore. James hadn’t slept better than that night, in what felt like years. They woke up far apart all the same. Sharon and him didn’t say anything to each other but good morning for the whole day.

James was used to it.

He went to the grocery store two times a week now, telling himself that it was out of necessity and not because it was more peaceful there than at home.

”You don’t even like peas, Bucky.”

James whirled around, looking at the blond man standing next to him. He looked tired and sad. His sadness was also the one thing that made James notice that yes, this was the same blond man who had been occupying his thoughts for the past week. He just couldn’t figure out why he felt so - at peace when he thought of him.James looked around in question, trying to find the person the blond man was talking to. He looked spooked now, starring at James wide eyed. James returned his gaze once he realised there wasn’t another person here other than them.

”Who the hell is Bucky?” He asked dumbly.

The blond man closed his eyes for a moment, making James aware of how pale and tired he really looked. ”Nothing,” the man rushed to say, sounding breathless. ”I’m sorry. You just - reminded me of someone.”

The man sounded nothing short of heartbroken. He looked devastated and unhappy. James didn’t know why he cared so much, but it felt like seeing this man sad was something his whole body was begging him to prevent.

”Hey, you good?” James asked, wanting to reach out and put his hand on the man’s shoulder but then stopping himself. It’d be inappropriate.

The man smiled at him, so sad but so warm, James felt more at _home_ than he literally ever remembered feeling.

”Yes,” the man assured him quickly. His smile was beautiful, James noticed. No matter how sad, he was breathtaking. ”I am alright.”

”Hard day?” James asked, not knowing why but he wanted to keep talking to him. Never stop to talk.

The man laughed softly, shaking his head. ”Hard year.”

James couldn’t help but smile at the man at the sound of his laughter. He swore, it was his first real smile since he’s woken up.

”I’ll get out of your hair,” the man said after a moment of comfortable silence. James didn’t want him to leave but nodded anyway. ”Sorry again. Have a good one.”

”I hope your year’ll get better,” James called after him. The blond man laughed again before rounding the corner.

James stood still in the aisle for a few more minutes, starring down at the peas in his hand.

_Bucky, _he thought. The name felt like it was turning something in his brain, just clicking, feeling so right.

It couldn’t just have been a misunderstanding. It felt more like _home_ than any other thing has.

James shock his head at himself.

He didn’t buy the peas, though.

After they’ve talked, James saw him a handful more times. Sometimes they just smiled at each other as quick hello, but, more often than not, the man was just starring at literally anything, looking deeply broken.

It broke James’s heart to see him like that. He didn’t know what to do about it, though. He was a stranger, no matter how familiar the man felt.

He talked with Sharon about it. Told her about the sad blond man in the grocery store.

She didn’t laugh at it. She didn’t really look confused either. She put a smile on her face that looked like a mask, telling him he worried too much.

He didn’t think so.

Something about her reaction was so off he couldn’t shake it.

She closed the door of her office behind her again that night. James knew she would. She always seemed to when he has done something to which she reacts with her too wide smile. He could hear her making a phone call, but didn’t understand a word she said.

He didn’t see the sad blond man again.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> UFFF guys, that has been a hot second since I uploaded this and I don't even have an excuse. I have so much for for this already pre written hjkhgfjkl. Hi. Say hello to your quarantine - angst - reading !!
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter, let me know :-) I always love reading comments, dudes, you can't even imagine fhskjdhd hahah they always make me go like awwww - I guess that is a happiness sound, dude idek 
> 
> So, imma just upload this real quick and leave you with the angst. If you comment and I reply instantly btw, please tell me to go tf to sleep, just say "Nick, you have the morning shift at work tomorrow, dumbfuck" 
> 
> I hope you all are doing well and you and your family, friends and literally everybody is healthy and stays that way. 
> 
> \- Nick


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hey you!! 
> 
> The ending sounds really hopeful for the all the angst that is yet to come hahah little April fools if you will. On the 13th. You know hahaha
> 
> I hope you enjoyed this chapter - let me know in the comments. I always love reading your opinions :) #HappyNick
> 
> :) <3 I hope you are doing well 
> 
> \- Nick

**Steve:**

”Are you trying to make my job harder or is this just an additional outcome to your issue with following direct orders?”

Steve held his phone a bit away from his ear, irritated. ”Hi, Sharon,” he answered, not quite knowing what else he was supposed to say. He knew exactly what this call was about, there was no need to even pretend he didn’t.

He also knew that he did in fact mess up, badly so, but Steve was convinced it wasn’t his fault. Not entirely anyway. He had been distracted and didn’t think before he talked to Bucky.

”Don’t even,” Sharon hushed harshly, sounding not amused at all. ”Steven, how am I supposed to do my job if you keep intervening?”

Steve sighed, running his hand through his hair. ”I’m really sorry.” Except he really wasn’t. ”It was an accident. I didn’t mean to talk to him.”

”You _talked_ to him?”

”By _accident,”_ he insisted, not trying to think about the fact that he apparently could have gotten away with it if he had just let her talk first.

”My god, Steven,” she hushed and Steve heard her shuffling through papers. She didn’t even sound mad, he noted, just tried and so frustrated.

”I told you I am sorry,” he told her, not really knowing what else he was supposed to say.

Sharon huffed a laugh that couldn’t have sounded less amused. ”And I am certain you meant it.”

”Look, Sharon,” Steve started, not quite knowing what he was supposed to say. Sharon got a good read of him, with all the times he had called her to ask about Bucky. ”I didn’t mean to. I just saw him and I wasn’t thinking.”

Sharon sighed again. Steve was convinced Sharon would have loved to yell at him, but she was still talking in a quiet voice. Steve wondered if Bucky was close to her, so she had to be quiet or if that was just how she handled being deeply frustrated.

Steve pulled the corners of his mouth up in empathy. He really was sorry that he made her job harder for her, truly. But he would never be sorry for finally talking to his husband again. Even though it was just for a few minutes about literally nothing of importance. He had felt more alive than he had the whole past half year.

”I need you to tell me about your conversation. I thought it was just that James has begun to actively notice you in different places, but if he has already talked to you, too, I need to pull up different paperwork and call Fury for new orders.”

Steve rolled his eyes. He still only talked to Fury if it was regarding work or Bucky, but it was always cut short and cold. Steve had no intention of being the bigger man.

He also noted that she always called him _James_. She has never known him as Bucky, which probably made her job a lot easier, but it still irritated the hell out of him.

”We talked about peas, Sharon,” Steve said, suddenly sounding as exasperated as she did. ”That’s it. He was about to buy some, I told him he didn’t like them, he asked if I had a bad day, we went our merry way.”

”Are you positive that was all you talked about?”

Steve frowned, then nodded to himself. ”Pretty sure.”

Sharon sighed again. She always seemed to when she was talking to him. ”I’ll report it to HQ and will wait for orders as to how to resume.”

”Okay,” Steve answered, certain that he could not care less about new orders. ”Anything else?”

Sharon shuffled through some more papers before she talked again. ”Yes, the actual issue I was calling about. James didn’t mention talking to you, he only told me that he kept seeing a, and I quote: 'Sad Blond Man'. I am assuming that is you?”

Steve huffed out a startled laugh. Nothing but a little sound, but yet, warmed him up inside nonetheless. ”It might be.”

”Steven,” Sharon said again, sounding exasperated. She had the habit of always sounding as if she was scolding him like a misbehaving child.

”I know you might not believe this,” Steve rushed to say. He didn’t apologise again, though, she knew it wouldn’t be sincere anyway. ”But I really don’t seek him out or like stalk him. He just happened to be at the grocery store when I also got my errands.”

”And you happen to sit in the park he jogs through,” Sharon added drily.

Steve shrugged to himself. ”Honestly. I just saw him there once or twice, too. We live in the same part of the city, Sharon, people run into each other, it happens.”

”Yeah,” Sharon drew out. ”I need you to stop it from happening. Do you understand?”

Steve understood without an issue. That didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight it, though. ”Who does everybody think they are, telling me to stay away from my husband?”

”Apparently the only ones caring for his recovery,” Sharon answered unimpressed. She was far from intimidated by him.

Steve scoffed again, feeling his anger burn up deep inside his stomach. He knew he shouldn’t be mad at Sharon, but it didn’t change the fact that he was. ”I care about that more than anyone,” Steve reassured her angrily.

Sharon huffed, sounding more and more irritated too. ”Then act like it. You are a trained Captain, Steven. Separate your feelings from this matter and finally act like the agent you were trained to be. Do you really want to risk his life just so you can spend time with him? Is it really that important?”

Steve was silent for a few seconds. He knew when he was losing a fight but he just couldn’t believe he was losing this one. Because Sharon’s arguments were delivered perfectly, message, reasoning, delivery, it was flawlessly done; Sharon knew what she was selling and Steve had to give it to her that she really did work hard to make him understand.

It wasn’t the problem that he didn’t understand, though. He knew where they all were coming from. But that didn’t change the fact that he knew he was right.

”He is a person, Sharon,” Steve argued. They have been over this whole topic about 72 times before this. He knew what she would say next, how she would try to justify her part in all of this, but in the end, he’d still know he was right and she would still argue that Bucky was in danger whenever he saw Steve. ”He isn’t a mission.”

”He isn’t _your_ mission,” Sharon contoured easily as if she wasn’t able to hear how wrong that sounded on more levels than just one.

”But he is _my_ husband,” Steve bit out, aiming for it to sound angry, but it came out bitter and desperate instead. Steve pulled the corners of his mouth down in distaste, hating to show his emotions to her like that.

Sharon sighed again. Steve thought she would keep on arguing but instead she sounded oddly soft and understanding when she spoke up again. ”I know that, Steve. I know what James means to you and trust me, I am trying my best to make him happy. I really am.”

”That’s not good enough,” Steve stated boldly, because it was the truth and he needed her to understand that.

”Steven,” Sharon said, changing her soft voice back to sounding hard and strong. She didn’t even sound rude, not really, but she was leaving no room for discussion. Steve squared his shoulders, ready to discuss it anyway. ”I know you feel like you are the only one being treated badly here but I didn’t imagine my life to go like this either. I didn’t exactly plan on getting married to a taken gay man, but sometimes you have to adjust.”

Steve scoffed, not answering yet.

”Seriously,” she added when he stayed silent. ”But this is what life is like, for us. This is the job we signed up for.”

Steve leaned back against the wall in his hallway, not quite knowing how to fit all his thoughts into one statement. He understood where Sharon was coming from and that was the whole problem. He wanted to be mad at her for the part she played in this but he knew that she has never asked for this.

Yet, he was furious. She had Bucky, right there with her and she didn’t want him. Steve would give his _life_ to have his husband back and she lived that and hated it.

”I didn’t sign up for this,” Steve finally answered, saying nothing of the things he actually wanted to say. He was aware that Sharon was doing all she could do, she wasn’t the villain here. He knew she went out of her way to give him updates on Bucky, acted in sympathy and really did try to make him happy. It didn’t change anything that mattered, though.

”I know,” she agreed.

They stayed silent for a long while after that. It was Sharon again who broke the silence first.

”I’ll call you again as soon as I hear back from HQ. Till then, please, stay away from him. Just this once, listen to your orders, yes?” She sounded like she didn’t believe he would actually do as told.

Well, she wasn’t wrong.

”You know I can’t do that,” Steve answered honestly, not seeing a reason to lie to her when they both knew the truth anyway.

”He already remembered a bit of you, you know?” Sharon added, quietly, as if she didn’t even want to bring it up but didn’t see how she couldn’t.

Steve’s mouth fell open in shock. He didn’t know that. He gripped his phone with both hands, pressing it closer to his ear, scared to have misheard. ”What?” He breathed out, his voice sounding oddly hoarse.

”It’s not a good thing,” Sharon said instead of repeating it.

Steve disagreed. It was amazing. It was a huge, great thing. He felt distinctively how tears rose to his eyes, hope so heavy on his shoulders he thought it might crush him.

”What did he remember?” He asked. Bucky hadn’t recognised him in the grocery store when they’d spoken, which has broken Steve in ways he couldn’t even try to explain, so what exactly did he know?

”Sharon?” He added when she stayed silent for too long, letting him get lost in his thoughts.

”If your secrets were like seeds,” she said and Steve nearly flinched at hearing the familiar words from her mouth. It was as those words weren’t supposed to be out in the open like that, not said like that. They had too much meaning for Steve to accept her saying them so bitterly. ”Ringing a bell?”

”Hire a gardener for your grave,” Steve finished the sentence thoughtlessly, feeling a little smile growing on his face. Bucky _remembered._

_”_Yeah, this information would have been really useful a few weeks ago,” Sharon said. ”Do you even grasp how dangerous this is?”

Steve frowned, accepting this as another thing he and Sharon disagreed about. ”What do you want me to do? Sit back and watch while he is miserable?”

”Thank you,” Sharon said sarcastically and then repeated, ”I am trying to make him happy.”

_That’s not good enough_, Steve didn’t say again.

”And I know how to make him happy. I can’t help running into him from time to time, Sharon. I didn’t plan that,” Steve tried to explain again.

”Try harder to avoid him, then. Plan on _not_ running into him. Do you understand me, Captain?” She sounded dead serious from a second to the next. As if she was just about to discuss the whole thing from A to Z with Steve again, as she has done over and over again for the past 6 months. ”If I see you anywhere near him again or he tells me anything about the Blond Man then I’ll report you to Fury. I know you signed paperwork, too. You have rules to follow even though you love to pretend you don’t. Stay away, Rogers.”

Her hanging up was as good an ending for this conversation as her last statement was, Steve figured.

He didn’t even have the chance to say anything in return. Tell her that threatening him wouldn’t help her, wouldn’t keep him away from his husband, but he didn’t know if that was so true.

Because truth was, as much as he wished it wasn’t, yes, he had signed paperwork. Agreements that meant he could get sued for more money than he’d ever make in his life if he went against them.

Steve slid down the wall he had been leaning against and put his head in hands, the hope that had been building up in him slowly dying away.

Steve woke up on the couch in a cold sweat, looking around disoriented for a second before he remembered where he was. It kept happening more and more often. Before, Steve used to take his wedding ring off when he went to sleep. He didn’t anymore. He kept it on all the time, curling his hand up over his heart, where the pain is the worst.

He didn’t take another second for himself after that. He had a mission. Steve pulled a fresh shirt over his head and was out the door not even 5 minutes after he’d woken up. Spending time in the apartment just distracted him.

Sam opened his door in Pj pants and an old shirt, a glass of orange juice in his hand. ”Morning,” he greeted. He lost the sad edge around his smile when Steve had told him that Bucky was alive. Sam looked more worried about him now than ever before though, more so every passing days.

Sam didn’t work for SHIELD, or hadn’t, anyway. Steve was certain that he hadn’t been allowed to talk about the circumstances of Bucky’s death, but he had to. There was nothing worse they could do to him. He had nothing more to lose, nothing more to give. Sam agreed to put his military training to good use and help him. After making sure Steve knew that he was crazy for all but planning to take down all of HYDRA alone if that was what it took.

”Sharon told me to stay away from him,” Steve said when he walked past Sam to get inside, it was the only new information he had for him.

Sam closed the door behind him, following him into the kitchen. ”She is taking her job seriously. This is a good thing.”

Steve just starred at him. He wondered if he just had to look at Sam long enough, for him to understand what Steve was trying to say. That he didn’t see how it could possibly be a good thing when it hurt him so badly every second he was awake and stealing his sleep at night.

”She is trying to protect him of _me_,” Steve said, more slowly, as if Sam hadn’t heard him right the first time.

Sam shock his head, offering him a glass of juice. ”Nah - ah. She is trying to follow the only protocol she has for this whole messed up situation.”

”Tomato, Tomahto,” Steve shrugged, maybe just to be irritating. Sam knew him too well to get rilled up over it.

”Sure,” he nodded, while looking like he couldn’t disagree more. ”Anyway, is there new intel?”

Steve deeply appreciated Sam, he noticed again. He didn’t know if he would still be standing if it hadn’t been for his friend. ”We still have the new coordinated from the HYDRA base we invade last week, but Stark still hasn’t been able to actually get information about how active the new base is, yet. We could be walking into a trap.”

Sam pursed his lips in thought. ”Something tells me, that wouldn’t stop you.”

Steve shrugged at his friends, grinning slightly. ”You ready?”

”The new base is certainly more active than the one before,” Tony put his sunglasses atop his head, pointing at a satellite picture of the HYDRA bunker. ”But it has been suspiciously quiet the past few weeks. Only a few people going in, less coming out. They seem to prepare.”

Steve nodded, crossing his arms. ”Do we have a reliable source close by? How old is the intel you’ve gathered?”

Tony turned to him, looking deeply offended. ”Excuse you, Captain. My drones send me all the news right to my phone the second something changes. And right now, it all points to it being a trap. They are gathering men in there, they are ready to defend and attack.”

”So are we,” Steve said convinced.

Clint huffed from where he was sitting crosslegged in his chair, next to Natasha. Steve hadn’t talked to her about any private matters since the day he found out that Bucky was still alive.   
  
”We are not prepared to overrun a whole HYDRA facility, Captain,” she said, her voice calculated. ”If what Stark says is true, then it means there are about a 100 men in this base only. We don’t know if they store back up somewhere. We don’t have the layout for the base, either. We’d be going in blind.”

”Wouldn’t be the first time,” Steve answered, eyebrows furrowed.

”We don’t have the man power, Steve,” Sam said softly. ”We are ordered to bring as many HYDRA agents in for intel. If we just went after them in this base, it’d be a bloodbath, for both sides.”

”Well then let’s rip all of them to shreds,” Steve shrugged, not kidding as much as he’d like to.

Sam made eye contact with him, walking closer to him and then spoke silently as if he was trying to make it seem like the others couldn’t still hear him. ”I don’t even recognise you anymore, sometimes.”

Neither did Steve, he didn’t say.

The worst thing is that he is trained enough to know all that. He knew that he should work on getting better. That he didn’t deal with the problem head’s on, maybe for the first time in his life. But he also just couldn’t.

He was lashing out and he knew it. He was ready to pay whatever price it was to make sure that Bucky could come back to his old life. Fury said they may have a chance to make sure the memory of the procedure wouldn’t kill him but first, they needed to make sure that HYDRA couldn’t get their hands on him.

  
Still, Steve was growing more and more reckless, however that was possible, and he was sure that Sam wasn’t the only one who noticed that.

”I’m not forcing anybody to come with me,” Steve said, seriously. He was dealing with this in his own way. He might not care much if he made it out alive or not, but he did care for his friends and if they weren’t willing to risk it, then he’d be okay with it.

”We wouldn’t let you go alone, idiot,” Clint murmured, drinking more of his coffee. The rest of his team nodded, none of them hesitating. Steve didn’t know why it made him equally sad and proud.

It was a bloodbath, just as Sam had predicted. Steve doubted anyone was surprised by it, but it turned out worse than he had imagined it to. They haven’t lost anyone from the team but it had been luck more than anything else and Steve was certainly not the only one who has realised that.

He wished that it would make him feel better that everyone of his team has willingly chosen to come with him, but it really didn’t. It was a close call, too close and he knew it.

Steve shock his head silently to himself, finishing his paperwork and was about to leave his office when Natasha and Sam entered. He wasn’t surprised to see Sam, Natasha though he hadn’t thought would have the nerve to show up.

”I know,” Steve said before either of them could even open their mouths.

”Do you, though?” Natasha answered, walking past him and sat down on her desk. Steve didn’t even glance at her. He didn’t want to see her.

Sam nodded, but his eyes were a lot more understanding than Natasha. ”Steven,” he said, in his kind but hard voice, which he used to soften the blow of the statement that was gonna follow. ”You need help.”

Steve crossed his arms. He was tired and he knew he fucked up, he really did. He didn’t need to be reminded of it again, though. ”I don’t know what you mean.”

Sam didn’t even need to try to look like he was calling bullshit. ”Steve, you have PDST. Clearly. You are not dealing with something that needs to be dealt with and the only thing that makes you is miserable.”

That sounded reasonable and true and Steve truly doubted he could change Sam’s mind about that. He was not getting better and he also wasn’t going to. Because he was deep in denial and he had no intention to get better either. He didn’t plan for it. He had accepted it.

”We lived together. We worked together, we had the same friends. Every part of my life had Bucky in it and now he’s gone. How am I supposed to deal with that? Sam, I can’t just give him up,” he said at last, deciding to not start a lost battle again.

”Sometimes you have to let people go." Steve knew it wasn’t a joke but he felt like he could laugh about it for hours. In hindsight, a big red flag that he ignored.

”He is miserable and doesn’t even know it, Sam,” Steve insisted. ”I _know_ him. I know what his hopes and dreams are and how he wanted to live his life and this isn’t it.”

”Do you really think you are the only person who has ever been in love?” Natasha said carefully from behind him. Steve didn’t flinch, but it was a close thing.

”No,” he said without turning. ”But I just want to remind him that I love him, but I can’t."

”He knows,” Sam said gently.

Steve nearly laughed out loud about the thing that couldn’t be less true, Bucky _really _didn’t.

”Do you know how hard it is to sit in the apartment we used to share and know that he won’t ever come back?” Steve whispered, sinking in one of the chairs in front of his desk.

Natasha raises an eyebrow and clenches her eyes. It was weird to see her face turn back to looking so cold, when in the past few months she had always tried to look as apologising at him as possible. Steve knew immediately that her next words were gonna be hurtful.

”You are so selfish, Rogers,” she said, her voice calculated and with edge, but yet not as harsh as Steve had imagined them to be. ”Other Agents out there grieve their dead partner but not you. You had the luck, the one in a billion chance to have a partner that survived. He is alive and healthy and you are here and still whine about it? Show some respect. Be grateful for what you got; other’s would kill for it.”

He didn’t know how to explain to her that this might be one of the worst parts of it. Nobody understood him. Everybody wanted him to be happy that Bucky was alive and he was. He swore, he was. But he has still lost him. Bucky won’t ever come back to him. He was alone.

Steve looked her straight in the eyes for the first time of this meeting. ”I still watched him die, too.”

The silence that followed was so tense that Steve swore he could pull it apart with his hands.

”I just want to save him, now that I know that I can,” Steve added, when it became to hard for him to dwell in the heavy silence between him and his friends.

”Does he want you to save him, though?” Sam asked and made a valid point that Steve could fight in his sleep by now, since it was all he seemed to talk about with Shannon every other day.

”Of course he does,” Steve insisted and then added for no reason other than that he felt like he needed to prove it to Sam and Nat, ”Bucky loves me.”

”I know,” Sam laid one hand on Steve’s shoulder and he felt himself relax a little under the comforting touch. "But does James?”

Steve knew without looking that Sam was giving him this look again. Eyes filled with so much concern that Steve felt uncomfortable just thinking about it. He didn’t need Sam’s worries. He didn’t want him to be concerned.

He took a deep breath at Sam’s words. They were hurtful and may be true but how was he supposed to accept that.

”I deserve the chance to make this right, Sam,” Steve said quietly. ”There is a way to get him back to us, don’t you want that too? We have a shot and I need to take it.”

”You have to stop doing it like this, though,” Sam walked around the chair to face him. His eyes were warm and honest even though there was a hard edge in his voice. ”You put everyone in danger. You put _yourself _in danger. I won’t let you anymore.”

”You cannot stop me,” Steve said without even having to think about it. As sorry as he might be about putting his team in danger, he would not stop with giving everything he could do himself to get his husband back.

”I know,” Sam said, softly. ”But we can find a compromise. We have the new intel and we can use it. We will use it. But not alone. We will need Fury’s help and that of the whole agency. We will make plans of attack, act along the rules. We will get orders that we’ll follow. Step by step.”

Steve looked up at his friend, not quite knowing if he was happy with that or not. It sounded reasonable and maybe like it was the best move to make. ”This is gonna take so much time,” he argued lightheartedly anyway.

”And it will be worth it,” Sam nodded, shooting the tiniest smile his way. ”Let’s bring your boy home.”

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this idea even came from. I was just standing around and my brain was like: "Hey, Nick, here's angst!!" that and "Wasteland, baby!" by Hozier, apparently. (Again, the "If your secrets were like seeds" bit is a QUOTE. A beautiful, beautiful quote from the song "No Plan") 
> 
> Hey!! Did I make you cry? Did I? Haha - there's more angst to come!! I have already written like 34k words for this and then started another Stucky story and wrote like 34k words for THAT ( I am thinking about uploading it rn too, I'm in the mood) - both are not yet finished but I am getting there. Might write another 34k words for a third story in between, though. (Also, why yes, I also temporarily killed Bucky in the other story too. Marvel said it's illegal to not let Bucky suffer at all times and who am I to not follow that law) 
> 
> Let me know how you liked it!! Comments always make me smile so hard, you won't believe it. 🥰 They always make my whole day, I swear.  
Also, the more, the faster imma upload because my Dori - Ass, will completely forget to upload until comments remind me, sfjsdjffjsd, idek. I'm one tired, underpaid, forgetful bitch, dude, hi. 
> 
> Btw !! I have written that before Endgame and I do realise it's not a good time to make Natasha a "bad guy" which is why she isn't. I just see her character as a good friend but also, first and foremost, loyal to Fury and Shield. They will talk it out, though!! (I guess. I haven't written that yet. But yes, they will!) 
> 
> Talking about beautiful songs. (I wasn't, but go with it) "Almost sweet music" - owns my ass and also, really inspired me. The quotes "I laugh like me again, she laughs like you" and "I'm almost me again, she's almost you" are SO SO painfully beautiful, I feel like screaming every time I hear them. You should see me in the car, singing along dramatically as if my 19 year old ass has ever lost the love of my life or something. Anyhow, these quotes are so perfect for this story they make me feel all iodfhosdfl, you know?
> 
> \- Nick ♥️


End file.
